MY LIFE IS IN MY HANDS AGAIN
Beloved comedian Sil Fox was cleared last week of sexual assault. In an unflinching interview, he talks about that terrible night, how he was close to a breakdown and how his wife’s love sustained him. But there are questions about his 18-month ordeal tha
ALL his life, he’s been used to hearing rounds of applause but for comedian Sil Fox, this time the sound of those hands clapping meant everything to him.
Standing in the driveway of his home, fresh from appearing on the steps of Dublin’s Four Courts having been acquitted of sexual assault, the neighbours who had stood by him throughout his terrifying ordeal had come to their doors to welcome him home, clapping and cheering as he got out of the car.
For the 87-year-old it was the end of a nightmare ordeal, one that had left him without work, without purpose and without sleep for over a year and a half.
‘I remember the night,’ Sil says of the evening that turned his life upside down. ‘It was December 17, I was out at Harry’s Bar for the Big Band Night.’
As a renowned comedian, Sil still enjoyed an active working and social life. He was a wellknown figure around Dublin and beyond, performing with all the greats from Red Hurley and Joe Dolan to his good pal Dickie Rock.
His jokes run the gamut from good, clean fun to rude and risqué but he always tailored them for the audience in front of him. On this particular night he was in a gathering of friends, including some showbiz pals.
‘I’d gone there many a time to hear the big band,’ he says of Harry’s on the Green, the celebrated nightspot in Dublin’s city centre. ‘These two girls asked me to take a selfie with them — everybody asks me to get into the photographs with them — so I did.
‘But while I was getting that taken there was someone behind me pulling me, pulling my arm. I looked around and there was another woman with her friends and they said, “We want you.” I said, “I am busy at the moment but I will go over to you.”’
This happened three or four times before Sil went over to the group as they had requested.
‘I said hello, stood in for a photograph and then said, “Enjoy the rest of your night.” I walked back to the friends I was sitting with and that was it.’
Later that evening, while he was talking to comedian Barry Murphy, a woman approached Sil and accused him of touching her inappropriately. He felt this was ludicrous and told her so. He brushed off the incident and thought no more about it.
So when he got a call from An Garda Síochána in February 2019, it was no surprise that Sil at first thought someone was playing a practical joke.
‘I got a call from the police to say there was someone going to charge me with assault,’ Sil says. ‘I said: “Are you mad or what?” And he said: “We have to go through with it, Sil.”’
The comedian fully co-operated with the gardaí, going to Pearse Street Garda Station every time he was asked to attend.
‘Two or three times,’ he says. ‘They brought me into this particular room, I made a statement, I signed it and that was it. And then I was told it was going to court.’
Sil couldn’t believe what was happening — in fact the whole situation was so surreal, he kept it a secret from his family in the beginning, so sure was he that it had all been some dreadful mistake and would soon blow over. Why would he be brought to court at the expense of the taxpayer when he had done nothing wrong?
‘I was trying to keep it away from them,’ Sil says of his ordeal. ‘I went to Marrakesh on a golf trip with my son Cyril and I told him. Up until that point I hadn’t told anyone.’
Instead Sil had been suffering in silence, brooding alone, but as the court case approached, Cyril took action once he knew what was happening.
First, Sil broke the news to his wife of 60 years, Laura, and then his son Alan and daughter Laura, both of whom live in Australia.
‘My wife Laura said to me, “If you say you didn’t do it, then you didn’t do it.” She stood by me — everyone did,’ Sil says.
For Laura’s part she wishes she had known sooner. Both she and her son had seen a change in Sil and they were worried about him.
‘He didn’t tell me for quite a while,’ Laura says. ‘I knew there was something wrong but I couldn’t put my finger on it. He wasn’t himself. I would rather have known immediately so that I could deal with it.’
Cyril told his dad there was nothing to be ashamed of, insisting that the neighbours in their close-knit community hear about what was happening from Sil, rather than from reports in the paper.
Sil called at every door to tell his friends of the ordeal he was going through. They offered the family their unswerving support, something which comforted Laura too.
‘We live in a nice area,’ Laura says. ‘Everyone knows everybody else and they all said the same thing — “Sil’s not like that”, which is true.’
‘I asked him to knock into all the people on the road to talk to them himself,’ Cyril says. ‘Rather than him having to get into his car every day and see people staring out the window at you. That wouldn’t have been easy.’
But none of this was easy for his father, as Cyril will testify, not the run up to the trial, not the endless days in court, followed by the accusations of sexual assault being splashed all over the papers.
‘Yes I was scared,’ Sil says. ‘I was never in court in my life. I never had anything to do with the law. And I was thinking, “Oh my god, when is this going to end?” I felt it had to end because I didn’t do anything.
‘Every time I went to court I was all over the papers and it was awful. I couldn’t understand and I still can’t understand why this woman would do what she did, knowing that I had done nothing. What possessed her to do this?’
Sil’s legal team asked for reporting restrictions at the first hearing but the judge didn’t allow them. Under Irish law, sexual assault accusers are entitled to anonymity, but those they accuse are not, unlike in rape cases, when both parties remain unnamed until such time as a conviction is obtained.
And so Sil’s name was splashed all over the papers while his accuser remained unnamed.
Although his showbiz friends were supportive, his gigs were cancelled one by one.
‘As soon as my photograph went into the paper “charged with sexual assault or groping” a lot of people just believe it, you know?’ Sil says, still incredulous. ‘They just believe it.
‘I made my name as a good comedian and I was so disappointed when I was charged with something that I would never dream of doing.
‘All the shows I had booked,
‘I still don’t understand why this woman would do what she did’
‘Not one person ever said: “Did you do it?”’
including a few fundraisers, were dropped too. So I haven’t worked since last July.
‘Everybody stood by me but they couldn’t do anything to help me. Now I am hoping they might ask me back but I don’t know if I will be able or not, it’s up to my health.’
The health Sil refers to is his state of mind. Before all this happened, he was sprightly and working all the time. Now things are different.
Desperately worried about what was happening their beloved Sil, Laura and Cyril eventually persuaded him to seek help from his GP, who referred him to the mental health unit at Tallaght Hospital.
‘I suppose I cocooned early,’ Sil says of those dark days. ‘I didn’t want to meet people.’
Instead he worried non-stop about what was going to happen. The case was hit with delays and red tape and as time continued on, Sil’s worries started eating away at him.
‘The anxiety and fear made him go totally wonky,’ Cyril says. ‘The doctor put him on a small dose of these tablets and he had to go to the mental health department in Tallaght for them to assess him.’
There were psychiatrists and counsellors and Sil was diagnosed with anxiety and stress.
‘They gave me tablets to calm me down,’ says the pensioner. ‘I was hyper all the time. I couldn’t think of anything else, only the court case. I wasn’t prepared to talk to anyone.
‘I was on sleeping tablets, I still am, but I only take a small dose now. But back then I would wake up in the middle of the night and stay awake for the rest of it.’
Sil’s legal team took special care of him, Cyril says, treating him with great kindness and respect. And their close relationship as father and son was also a godsend as they regularly hit the golf course while Cyril tried to coax out Sil’s worries over the greens.
‘We used to play golf with a friend of mine, a doctor and he would give dad the best encouragement every time we went out to play,’ Cyril says. ‘He said to him about the worry, “This will go — the very day you are found not guilty, this will change. I cannot give you any medication that will take this away but it won’t come back after you are cleared”, and so far that has turned out to be true.’
Last week, the case against Sil was thrown out because of inconsistencies between the complainant’s version of events and what could be seen on CCTV footage from the night.
The complainant said Sil had touched her private parts but his hand can be clearly seen in the footage on the table.
‘I was so relieved when the judge dismissed the case,’ Sil says. ‘But what if there had been no CCTV? It would have been my word against hers.’
The Fox family are justifiably annoyed at the length of time all this took, putting a man of Sil’s age through an ordeal that lasted a year and a half when the CCTV evidence was in play from early on.
But they are more annoyed that Sil’s name has been in the papers while his complainant remains anonymous.
‘It’s not right for my name to be in the papers all the time and hers is not,’ Sil says. ‘That’s the law but I cannot understand why. Cliff
Richard was the same. I think you should only be in the paper when you are found guilty.
‘I don’t think there should be photographs of you all over the place when you are innocent.’
On the day the charges were dropped, Sil was not in court but a call from their solicitor prompted Cyril to drive his dad to Dublin 7 so that he could walk down those court steps and address the media. He was a free man who, as he had insisted all along, had done nothing wrong.
‘I was on the news,’ Sil says. ‘I made a statement and thanked the people I wanted to thank. It was only afterwards that I realised the lady who accused me was there too.’
‘I wouldn’t have called her a lady,’ interjects Laura, still angry at what her husband has been put through,
Both she and Sil feel that anonymity should be afforded to the accused as well as the accuser, as the system as it stands is unfair in their eyes, particularly as there is no recourse for Sil now when it comes to the woman who accused him.
‘I can’t understand why she did it,’ he says again.
But for now, it’s time to try and get the life he once led back.
‘I’m getting back slowly but surely to the way I used to be,’ Sil says.
‘It’s going to take a while. The tablets that I was on I will be on for a while as you can’t come off them very quickly, you have to ease off them.
‘Other than that I have to try and get myself back.
‘I was shunning people and they were afraid to talk to me, now I can hold my head up high and go anywhere I like and meet all the people I know in showbusiness. They all supported me when this was going on.
‘Not one person ever said: “Did you do it?” They knew I hadn’t and they stood by me.
‘But I have to see if I can get back to the way I was before all this happened. My life is in my hands again now. At 87 you don’t live forever, but I will do my best.
‘It has been a year and a half of this pressure and it’s a very hard thing to do to say “ah it’s gone now and I’m back”. It’s not as easy as that.
‘But I am glad it’s all over.’