Four young women who were sexually abused as children broke down in court yesterday as they told how their lives were shattered by the actions of their abuser.
John Joe Lee (79), of Carrowhubbock, Enniscrone, Co Sligo, was jailed for four years at Sligo Circuit Court for indecently assaulting the girls on dates between 1970 and 1977, when they were aged between eight and 14.
Lee, who has heart disease, asthma and diabetes, apologised to his victims and their families. He told the court that he was sincerely sorry for what he had done and hoped that the young women would "survive all the pain they had suffered" as a result.
Accompanied in court by his 80-year-old wife, he pleaded guilty to 11 counts of indecent assault.
One of the women, whose parents rented a cottage from Lee in Enniscrone in the mid-1970s, told the court he "took my father's money and violated my body."
She was unable to relate to the opposite sex as a result of what had happened, and before getting married she had had to tell her husband that she was "damaged goods if he was willing to take me."
She felt embarrassed by her own sexuality because "Tex Lee had walked away with it'.' She said her father would have killed the accused if he had known what he had done.
Another victim told the court she had to give up her job in a bank in England because of the effects of what happened. She felt angry and was unable to handle simple things.
At one stage she thought she was "going mad and would have to be locked up." For a long time she hated her father because he was a man.
Another of the women said she reported the matter to the Garda not "for spite or to get revenge," but because an eight-year-old child in the 1970s had no voice because of fear, threats and intimidation.
Recounting the abuse she suffered at Lee's hands as an eight-year-old in 1972, she told the court that he took away her human dignity and took every opportunity to abuse her. She could no longer stand on the pier at Enniscrone because of the awful memories it brought back.
One of the victims said she had considered suicide.