Daughters of jailed rapist soldier bravely speak out
TWO women who were raped and abused by their retired soldier father for years during their childhood, bravely waived their anonymity yesterday.
Amy Barrett and her sister Melissa O’Keeffe suffered at the hands of their father Jerry O’Keeffe from the ages of eight and 11 respectively.
Speaking after he was sentenced to ten years in prison yesterday, a visibly emotional Ms Barrett urged other sexual abuse victims to come forward, saying: ‘It’s not your fault’.
‘I didn’t ask for this and Melissa didn’t ask for this either.’
She added: ‘I have had feelings of guilt, shame, embarrassment and hurt for years, but today I hand them back to my Dad.’
In a victim-impact statement, Ms O’Keeffe said: ‘Today I finally have the voice that I didn’t have when I was 16.’
Justice Patrick McCarthy said
‘Extremely serious abuse’
that Jerry O’Keeffe’s crimes brought about the destruction of his daughters’ childhoods.
And passing sentence, he said O’Keeffe should not be given a reduced term just because he is in his late 60s. ‘It is hard to find words to describe each new outrage inflicted on these children,’ the judge said.
O’Keeffe, 68, of Oakhill, Youghal, Co. Cork, pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to three charges of rape, five of indecent assault and one of sexual assault. These were nine sample charges out of a total of 78 covering a period from 1980 to 1987.
In her victim-impact statement, Ms Barrett described her childhood as very traumatic, and said she was ‘a mixed bag of confusion and terror’ as a result of her father’s crimes.
Previously the court heard that the rape charges and two charges of indecent assault related to O’Keeffe’s eldest daughter, Ms Barrett, and took place at the family home at The Arch, Youghal, Co. Cork. The judge said O’Keeffe’s rape of his daughter Amy occurred over five years, starting when she was just eight years old. It was a commonplace event and amounted to ‘repeated, extremely serious abuse’.
He said the assaults against Ms O’Keeffe – which began when she was 11, and went on for six years – were also extremely serious.
Judge McCarthy said their victim-impact statements conveyed a degree of hurt and pain that was difficult to understand.
He added that their experience was best surmised by Ms Barrett’s statement that she loved and trusted her dad, and he in turn had betrayed that trust.
Speaking outside court yesterday, Ms Barrett said she and her sister Melissa were happy with the sentence, but sad at the same time as O’Keeffe is still their father. ‘It’s almost like we’re in mourning for him now,’ she said.
‘It was never about the sentence. It was always about an admission of guilt, keeping him away from other kids, and getting closure for ourselves.’
Melissa O’Keeffe said she went to gardaí in 1999 about the childhood abuse but had to pretend she lied about the allegations after her parents confronted her. Both victims reported the matter to gardaí again in 2014.
Judge McCarthy said Jerry O’Keeffe committed extremely serious offences and it beggared belief that a man could behave in such a fashion. He said he was taking O’Keeffe’s guilty plea into account in mitigation, but said it came ‘not at the 11th hour but at five minutes to midnight’ after legal proceedings had begun.
Referring to O’Keeffe’s age, he said, ‘These days 68 is no great age’, and added it would not count towards mitigation. He said the case merited consecutive sentences relating to each daughter, and the appropriate total period was ten years.
He imposed a seven-year sentence for the rape offences and a three-year term of imprisonment for the sexual assaults, to run consecutively. Comment – Page 12
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