Pervert ‘who stole piece of my soul’ is jailed

A PAEDOPHILE who raped and abused children for almost 30 years has been jailed for 18 years for his horrific crimes.

Peter Sharkey (47), of Mucknow Street, Castleblaney, Co Monaghan, sexually abused six children and raped two of them. The victims were aged from nine to 16 when attacked.

The abuse, which took place at addresses in Co Louth, continued until one of his victims went to gardaí in April 2015.

Sharkey pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to three counts of indecent assault on dates ranging from 1987 to 1990, and six counts of sexual assault committed on dates between 1997 and 2015. He also admitted one count of rape with an object on a date in 1998 or 1999, and one count of rape in 2014.

In sentencing yesterday, Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy paid tribute to the victims, saying the “trigger point” occurred when one victim, now aged 19, went to gardaí in April 2015 to report that she had been raped.

This resulted in the other five victims coming forward to report what the judge termed “extremely serious” abuse. Two of the girls were sisters, aged in their teens, at the time of abuse.

“He stole a piece of my soul and today I’m here to reclaim it,” one of the sisters told the court. The other sister said she didn’t want to be responsible for breaking up a family and therefore buried the memories.

Damage

“The damage cannot be undone; no child should ever have to carry this burden. I was targeted in my own home, and he left me in a constant state of fear,” a fourth victim said.

The fifth victim said in her statement that the defendant robbed her of her childhood and said she had to sleep with her mother for months after the abuse came to light. “Nobody knows the fear I had to live with, the man who was supposed to love and protect me,” she said.

The youngest victim, a juvenile male, told the court via video link that he blamed himself for the abuse.

Justice McCarthy said the offending was “a gross breach of trust” and constituted “the most extreme category of offence”.

“There is no cure for paedophilia. This is a case where there is no alternative but to conclude that this man is a paedophile of the dangerous kind,” he said.

He noted the accused had shown contrition a fortnight before he pleaded guilty but not while dealing with gardaí. Mr Justice McCarthy imposed various consecutive sentences totalling 18 years.