11yrs jail for evil foster dad who raped girl 1,000 times..
Victim: Abuse has torn me to pieces
A MAN who raped his foster daughter over 1,000 times has been jailed for 11 years.
Kelly Kemmy, 24, who has decided to waive her anonymity to name her abuser, 56-year-old Stephen Murray, said she was raped from the age of 11 until she was 18.
She told the Central Criminal Court she stands before Stephen Murray now a survivor.
Murray of, Humphreystown, Valleymount, Co Wicklow, pleaded guilty to 16 charges of rape and one charge of sexual assault on dates between February 2009 and December 2015. He has no previous convictions.
Kelly’s victim impact statement was read at Murray’s initial sentencing hearing.
Mr Justice Paul Mcdermott told the court that the accused and his wife had been trusted with the care of this girl and her two siblings. The judge said, throughout the abuse, Murray kept it a secret from his wife.
The judge said the aggravating factors were that the offences were carried out against a vulnerable young child in her own bedroom.
He said that Murray had inflicted terror, fear and isolation on the child, and that his empathy for the girl had only emerged recently. He said the offences were of the most serious
The abuse feels like a life sentence. My teenage years were so dark
KELLY KEMMY
COURT, YESTERDAY
level and sentenced Murray to a total of 12 years in prison.
Noting his early guilty plea, his expression of shame and remorse, his good work history and positive engagement with the probation services, Judge Mcdermott suspended the final 12 months on the condition that Murray keep the peace and be of good behaviour. He is also required to keep all appointments as directed by the probation services.
Prosecutor Anne Rowland said the pleas were acceptable to the State on the basis that they were sample charges. But added, the Director of Public Prosecution said the case falls into the “exceptional category” and it merited a headline sentence of between 15 years and life imprisonment.
The court heard that following an initial abuse of the girl in the sitting room of the family home – when he asked her to lie on him as “his blanket” – Murray would regularly come into her bedroom at night and rape her. He made this behaviour out to be “a normal thing”.
The rest of the family, including his wife, were often sleeping at the time.
On one occasion when there was a party in the house to mark her younger sister’s communion, the victim went to bed with a headache
but her foster father followed her into her room. He tried
to touch her telling her it would make her feel better.
She pushed him away and he left but he would punish her the following day with silence.
The woman reported the abuse to gardai in 2019 following a text conversation with Murray, when he asked her if they “could go again?”
She took this to mean that he was asking to have sex with her again.
At that point he had not raped her for several years but she was in the house and he had been drinking so she was worried he would come into her room.
She therefore decided to disclose the abuse to her younger siblings, her boyfriend at the time and then later the gardai. The man was arrested in
December 2019. He made no comment during interview.
His wife later made a statement to gardai in which she said he admitted to her that he had raped their foster daughter. The victim impact statement said the woman had been hurt “in a way that no human should”.
She added: “The abuse feels like a life sentence.”
She said she came to the man’s home “craving love and acceptance”.
She addressed Murray directly and said he used “my small body for your sexual gratification” and she found it difficult to put into words the “excruciating pain” she experienced.
The woman said she had “feelings of confusion and shame” as she tried, as a young child, to comprehend what was happening. She said there was “no safe place”.
She said: “It has torn me to pieces. My teenage years were dark.”
She said she didn’t want to exist and was “ashamed and embarrassed”. She added: “Today is when I start to live. I am determined that I will not let this define me.”
The woman told gardai that after she had sex education in school, she realised what had been happening was wrong and she feared what would happen to her and her siblings if the abuse came to light.
She said she and her siblings were “spoilt rotten” and wanted for nothing. Her foster mother was unable to have children and they were loved by her.