Taxi driver jailed for sex abuse of daughter, eight
AN 84-year-old man who sexually abused his adopted daughter over a decade has been jailed for three-and-a-half years.
John Walker was described by Jennifer Kelly, who waived her right to anonymity, as “a monster”.
The South Dublin man was found guilty of 40 counts of indecently and sexually assaulting her between 1990 and 2000 when she was aged between eight and 17.
It took the jury just over two hours to return unanimous guilty verdicts on all counts following a trial in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court last month.
In an emotional victim impact statement read out in court, Ms Kelly said he had “no regard, no remorse, no humanity”.
She added: “I was your child – your little girl – and you manipulated and abused me for your own gratification.
“You were my dad but you are an evil man, a dangerous man.
“I am a victim of 10 years of unrelenting sexual and emotional abuse at the hands of you, my father. The person who was supposed to protect me from the monsters was the monster.”
Sentencing Walker – a taxi driver of 47 years – Judge Patricia Ryan said she was taking into account the “very considerable harm done” and the fact the abuse was pre-meditated and planned over a 10-year period. She added threats were made by him to his victim “suggesting he knew people in high places” and that he “preyed on the vulnerability of an eightyear-old”.
She said his behaviour was “a grave abuse of trust, was predatory in nature” and Walker had shown no remorse.
The court heard the abuse took the form of Walker repeatedly kissing and fondling his daughter when they were alone.
He threatened to throw her into the Liffey if she told anyone.
The abuse ended when Ms Kelly confided in her brother’s partner on the night of her mother’s funeral in April 2000.
The court heard Walker, from The Cova, Whitehall Road, Perrystown, suffers from a number of health issues and is in remission from prostate cancer.