SEX ABUSE CRIME REPORTING ON RISE IN COUNTY WEXFORD
THE number of people reporting incidences of child sex abuse to gardaí has increased dramatically over the past year, figures obtained by this newspaper reveal.
A practising solicitor in the county said: ‘ There has been a huge uplift in historical child sex abuse cases in the county. I have never seen anything like it. We have been seeing almost one a week. The abuse involves family members: cousins, brothers, sisters.’
The solicitor said: ‘It’s a combination of TUSLA, independent reporting and counsellors encouraging people to report.’
The reported abuse allegedly occurred in County Wexford homes from the 1980s, up to 2012. ‘ The difficulty is with the statute of limitations. It’s a very complex area of law and power of arrest to question doesn’t apply in some historic cases which makes prosecutions difficult. We have dealt with religious, industrial and abuse in schools. A lot of it involves family members abusing family members.’
There has also been an increase in child pornography cases. ‘It’s horrific stuff. Over the last two years sex crime is way up. The internet is creeping in and I can see prosecutions for distribution of (child) pornography on WhatsApp and other social media apps.’
Figures from the Central Statistics Office reveal that there were 67 reported cases of rape or sexual assault in County Wexford in 2015, compared to 78 last year, a 16 per cent increase. Around half of these were historical sex abuse cases.
Chief Superintendent John Roche confirmed that there has been an increase in such cases, from 37 last year to 45 so far in 2017. The total number of sexual offences recorded in 2016 was 86, compared to 77 in 2015.
Supt Roche said the biggest increase over recent months has been in the New Ross area where 15 historical sex abuse cases were reported, compared to seven in 2016.
He said the cases involve abuse which allegedly occurred between the 1980s up to 2012. In recent times youths have reported sexual abuse to gardaí. In some instances multiple family members come forward to gardaí, making complaints against a particular family member.
‘It could be a sexual assault, a rape involving an uncle abusing a nephew, a male abusing a male, a father abusing a daughter. A lot of them happen in family homes. It could be a family friend. Many are reported on the advice of counsellors who encouraged the victim to come to us. The figures don’t tell the entire truth as sometimes a number of siblings come forward, as happened recently, against a family member in south Wexford. It just goes to show what is going on inside family homes around us.’