AN INCEST victim was abused for a quarter of a century longer than she need have been because at the age of 12 her "cries for help" were rejected by gardai in Raheny, Dublin, a court was told yesterday.
Mr Justice Carney made the observation at the Central Criminal Court when he jailed her brother, a Dublin man aged 46, for a total of 15 years. He refused a certificate for leave to appeal.
The victim is a 44 year old mother of seven living in local authority housing on the southside of the city.
Mr Justice Carney said that the courts in recent years have been focusing more on victim impact than was traditional in the past.
However, in the light of what happened in Raheny Garda station it was necessary to restate some "old law" which made it an indictable criminal offence for a policeman to fail to act on a "credible complaint of felony".
Quoting from the 1887 case of Creagh v Gamble Mr Justice Carney said: "A person against whom a reasonable suspicion of a felony exists shall be brought to justice. The peace officer is not only entitled, but bound, to arrest him."
He said this principle of common law still held good 110 years later. It was an indict able offence for a peace officer to "wilfully and without reasonable excuse or justification to neglect a duty imposed on him". This tenet was confirmed in a 1979 case.
Mr Justice Carney noted that what the woman said about her treatment at the hands of the Raheny gardai over 30 years ago was accepted by Garda Frances Withero, who was now responsible for bringing the charges.
"The effect of the rejection of the victim's credible complaints has been that she was incestuously abused for a quarter of a century longer than was necessary that she bore a child by her step brother, that she was abused while married, that she developed suicidal tendencies and that she was intimidated and beaten. She says herself that she has not had a life," he said.
In April the defendant pleaded guilty to raping and sexually assaulting his sister in 1994 and also admitted three charges of incest in 1971, 1974 and 1978.
Mr Justice Carney said it was not clear at what age the sexual abuse of the victim started but it was before the age of 12. She complained on two occasions to her parents, and that resulted in her getting a hiding and being put out of the house. This was when she was aged about 12 1/2.
She went to Raheny Garda station where a garda to whom she complained, apparently in the presence of a sergeant, said: "Well, did you not enjoy that? Did you not feel good about all the fondling and what your brother was doing? You must have got something out of it." She left the station crying.
In the defendant's favour, Mr Justice Carney took into account his plea of guilty, his confession to gardai and the dicta of Mrs Justice Denham of the Supreme Court that the court was concerned with neither retaliation nor revenge.
He imposed a sentence of 15 years on the rape charge, concurrent sentences of five years on the incest charges and three years for the sexual assault count.
He said so far as the incest offences were concerned, they were perpetrated at a time when the maximum penalty permitted by the Punishment of Incest Act (1908) was significantly lower than that provided by the Criminal Law (Incest Proceedings) Act (1995). He was bound to impose the penalties provided for at the "material time".
At an earlier hearing, Garda Withero said matters only came to light in August 1994 when a social worker approached her to find out about the procedure for sex cases. On October 27th the victim came to see her. Over a period of time the woman came to trust her and she recounted the story of the abuse which began when she was a child.
Garda Withero agreed with Mr Justice Carney that she found the victim believeable and accepted her account of her reception by the Raheny gardai.
She also agreed with Mr Brendan Grogan SC, defending, that the woman was a timid person and in interviews the victim revealed her own daughter had been sexually assaulted.
Since making the complaint in 1994 various people had called to her house and used "heavy threats and physical beatings" to dissuade her from continuing with the case. No one was apprehended for this, she said.