NOW WE ARE ALWAYS ON EDGE, AFRAID TO GO OUTSIDE

GERRY Garvey’s victim impact statement told a grim tale of how his family’s lives were ‘changed dramatically’ after the ‘frightening’ burglary.

‘Up to that point our home was a place of peace and tranquillity where our children happily roamed… without a care in the world,’ he said. ‘As a result of this horrible event, all of us feel constantly edgy, even within the confines of the house.

‘Doors are now almost always locked and none of the children will venture outside once dusk appears.’ He described how ‘any loud noise’ ‘sends shivers down our spines in a way that never previously existed’.

His daughter Gillian, who was 14 at the time, wrote: ‘I still have a fear of going outside, around the grounds of the house at night because I think somebody is watching me.’ She added: ‘Since the robbery I get the feeling that random men on the street are watching me or they were in the robbery.’

Her twin brother Graham, who was assaulted, said: ‘If I go outside in the evenings I think someone is (going to) attack me. At night, I don’t like going down the back stairs because I think that a man is going to smash in the front door. When I come in the back door I always run up the stairs because I think someone is going to run up after me.’

Graham Garvey said that, following the incident, he could no longer watch television crime programmes ‘because it brings it all back to me and then I have nightmares again about that night’.

The family praised ‘the great support of the local and regional gardaí who have been there for us at all times’.