Barnardos boss fury at ‘lenient’ sentence
Abuse victim slams two-and-a-half years handed down to paedo writer
Fergus Finlay THE chief of Barnardos has described the sentencing of Tom Humphries as “incredibly lenient”.
Fergus Finlay, speaking to RTE radio show Today With Sean O’rourke, said he is “reluctant” to second guess a judge but added: “I can’t see any basis this sentence could be described as anything other than incredibly lenient.
“This was a calculated, purposeful criminality over a long period of time that destroyed the life of a young person.
“There is no such thing as someone who is more than a paedophile.
“An act of sexual abuse that involves long careful preparation to the point you have ended up in total control of another person, that crime has no redeeming features whatsoever.
“I don’t believe it’s possible, in that particular instance, to separate the crime from the person.” Irish Mirror yesterday ABUSE victim Fiona Doyle has slammed the two-and-a-half year sentence given to paedophile Tom Humphries.
The shamed former Irish Times journalist will walk free by September 2019 due to remission.
Fiona, 51, said it doesn’t reflect the official process the victim had to go through after reporting such a crime.
The writer, with an address at Corr Castle, Sutton, North Dublin, pleaded guilty to six sexual offences against a girl under the age of 17.
Humphries, 54, sent her thousands of sexually-explicit texts before going on to meet her for sexual acts, beginning when she was 14.
Fiona said: “My heart just breaks for the victim. She must feel disgusted and shameful at the system, I know for a fact that’s how I felt.
“Going through the system is such a long process in itself, it can take four years. I worry for people who haven’t come forward yet, who might want to – this could put them off.
“The sentence seems so short, no one is thinking about the victims when they give it out.
“When something like this happens, you come off the path and end up on a path of shame and self-loathing.”
Fiona suffered horrific sexual abuse from her evil dad Patrick O’brien.
He was convicted of abusing her over a 10-year period. She added: “You stop being the child you were meant to be and it can stop you being the adult you were meant to be too.
“There will be hundreds and hundreds of people out there today, reading about this who haven’t gone through the process yet who will be now thinking about not speaking
that has been done FIONA DOYLE ON HUMPHRIES’ JAIL SENTENCE YESTERDAY
out because they don’t feel they are worth it.”
Fiona, from Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin, said she hoped the DPP will appeal the sentence.
She added: “This will be another year another abuse victim has to sit back and wait if they go through the appeal like I did.
“I worry about the sentence, it doesn’t balance out the damage that has been done. I know people in similar situations waiting years to get to court, no one acknowledges that.
“The biggest thing about it is it’s happening time and time again. I want this to stop and I want to see a mandatory sentence.”
Humphries was one of the country’s most prominent and outspoken sports writers and commentators. He was a volunteer and coach with junior girls GAA teams and it was in that position he sexually abused a child.
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard he shared more than 16,000 text messages with her.
Noeline Blackwell of the Rape Crisis Centre slammed the sentence, saying: “The judge seemed to recognise all the mitigating circumstances for the accused.
“There seemed not to be the same level of recognition for the harm that was done to the victim.”
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