A Judge, who yesterday imprisoned a man for eight years for rape, has criticised the education system for a failure in giving sexual instruction in schools. Mr Justice Budd said in the Central Criminal Court that the rapist's teenage victim had not even known how to complain to her mother or former teachers about what had been happening to her. He said the Irish education system taught students to say "no" but not how or why they were to say it.
Mr Justice Budd also criticised parents. He said that in most Irish homes matters of sexuality were "taboo" and not discussed. The court had heard that a Monaghan shopkeeper raped a girl shop assistant up to five times a week for six years from the time she was just over 15 years old. The judge said that unfortunately the victim had been sexually uneducated, a fault in Irish schools which had failed to make her aware of her sexuality and how to cope with it. It had also been clear the convicted man suffered from a failure to talk about his own sexuality.
Mr Justice Budd also criticised the lack of State funding for a support system for rape victims. The girl concerned would require years of intensive psychotherapy and he could not think of a case where there was a stronger need for support from the State. The 53-year-old Monaghan shopkeeper had pleaded guilty to five counts of rape and had asked for a total of 22 others, committed between 1979 and 1985, to be taken into consideration. Most of the rapes had taken place in a store but some had occurred in the defendant's family bathroom after the victim had stayed over to baby-sit.
Mr Michael McMahon SC, defending, said the defendant had fully accepted that everything the victim had said about the incidents was entirely true. A solicitor for the girl read a letter from her which stated she did not seek revenge in the sentence and wished only to leave the whole matter behind her. Mr Justice Budd said the girl was an entire innocent in the matter. The defendant had persisted in his hypocrisy and dishonesty and had been convicted out of his own mouth when the girl had used a tape recorder to record a conversation as proof of her allegations. The defendant had threatened to kill her and had brainwashed her into thinking that if she told anyone they would not believe her.
Mr Justice Budd said the whole affair had been a complete breach of trust in relation to the shopkeeper's own family, as an employer and in the abuse of his victim. He said the defendant had even raped her within a week of her having to undergo an appendix operation. The judge said the defendant had been a big man in a small community who used the girl in a degrading manner to satisfy his lust. He had brought shame on himself, his wife and his family and would suffer until his dying day the shame of what he had done.
The judge said a full sentence in the case would be equivalent to 15 years but said he would give the defendant a discount of four years for his plea of guilty and the fact that it was his first offence and that he had made restitution as a token of remorse.
He gave a further discount of three years as the defendant had been a good employer and a hardworking man. He suspended the last year of the sentence on condition that the defendant sought psychotherapy and reported to a Garda station once a week.
Mr Justice Budd also ordered that the defendant never again be in charge of children. He also ordered him, upon release, to continue to report to the Garda once a month for the rest of his life.