Motherjailedforparticipating inthesexualabuseofhersons

A COUNTY Wicklow woman who participated in the sexual abuse of her two sons has been sentenced to three years in prison.

The woman, aged in her 60s, appeared before Wicklow Circuit Court for sentencing recently, following her trial which took place in March.

The sentence hearing related to one incident, which State prosecutor Paul Murray said occurred some time between 1996 and 1999.

It was a Sunday, Formula One was on the television and they were all in the sitting room of the house. One of the brothers was aged between 12 and 14 at the time, the other between 10 and 13.

The stepfather told his wife to get undressed, which she did. The victims told the court during their mother’s trial that they had been forced to digitally penetrate their mother. She took part in what happened and also touched the boys’ genitals, as did their stepfather, who then had sex with the mother in front of the boys.

The older brother made a series of statements regarding his stepfather in 2014, as well as one statement indicating what happened involving his mother. The younger brother also came forward.

The victims’ stepfather was sentenced to 21 years, with seven suspended, in the Central Criminal Court last year for the sexual abuse, which he carried out over many years when they were boys.

The victims’ mother was interviewed in 2014. She answered some questions but denied stripping off in front of her children.

During her trial, the older brother gave evidence that he remembered his mother smiling at him during the incident.

‘After what she did to me I never felt like I had a mother,’ said the older brother in a victim impact statement. ‘ That day, she told [my stepfather] it was OK to do the things he did. I lost all confidence in myself, I had nobody to talk to. A mother is meant to protect her kids. I felt no protection. She allowed a paedophile to abuse me. She was a witness and she joined in.

‘She has never taken responsibility for her crime. She made me relive it in court and deal with her barrister putting it to me that I was lying. She knew I was not lying.’

In his victim impact statement, the younger brother said that he was filled with anger and anxiety at putting pen to paper ‘as, if I do, it means it really happened. It’s no longer a nightmare, but a reality.

‘ That day will haunt me for the rest of my life,’ he said. ‘I feel so ashamed and embarrassed. The only job as a mother is to raise your children not to have to recover from their childhood. It’s safe to say she failed. I have spent a lifetime trying to undo the damage.’

He said that he has no life skills and is not able to read and write properly as he was made leave school at 13.

‘Sleeping at night is the hardest thing for me,’ he said. ‘I have constant nightmares and I am afraid of the dark. It’s a daily battle facing the day ahead, when the vicious cycle begins.’

He said that after speaking to gardaí for the first time, he ‘ left the station feeling that there was someone there to protect us, the way a parent should protect a child.’

‘ These two young boys depended on their mother to protect them,’ said Judge Michael O’Shea. ‘A mother has iinfluence, commanding aand directing influence over the family. She was in a position of trust, a ddominant position. She was in a position to be protector, instead of that she turned out to be an aabuser,’ said the judge.

‘They were extremely vulnerable by reason of their ages,’ he said. ‘They could do absolutely nothing. What they were subjectedje to and what they had to do in the course of the abuse involving their mother is simply outrageous and disgusting. It has had a horrendous and destructive effect on both of them.’

Judge O’Shea sentenced the woman to five years, with two years suspended.