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‘This has set me back a year in my recovery’
A 47-year-old victim of a sex offender has called on Fine Gael deputy Pat Breen to apologise for tabling a Dail question inquiring about a possible early release date for the imprisoned man.
Joseph Nugent, a 74-year-old bachelor farmer from Dromellihy, Cree, Co Clare, was jailed in 2002 for six years on each of 23 counts of buggery of his neighbour, then aged eight. The abuse continued until the boy was 14.
Speaking for the first time since Mr Breen tabled the question, the victim said yesterday: “I really think Mr Breen should apologise if he has any decency in him at all. Not alone to me and my family, but to all the victims out there that have been hurt by this. It takes a man to apologise.”
Yesterday, Mr Breen was emailed a text of the victim’s comments, but failed to return calls on the victim’s demand for an apology.
The victim yesterday confirmed he was admitted to Ennis General Hospital as a result of the stress brought on by the publicity surrounding Mr Breen tabling the question.
Now released from hospital, he said: “This has sent me back a year in my recovery. We’re reliving the attacks.”
Mr Nugent is due fro release in February 2008 and in response to Mr Breen’s question about when Nugent will be eligible for early release, the Minister for Justice, Michael McDowell said that in view of the very serious nature of the offences, he was not prepared to authorise any early release.
The victim said yesterday: “I just felt bad and hurt by the things in the paper. I didn’t think it was a question he should have asked.
“I wouldn’t be that educated, but I know if I was asking when someone was coming out, I would have the common sense to ask the gardai or the prison service, which I think would have been the right thing to do in that case.
He added: “I was very offended. I just can’t see why that question came forward in the first place. It would be completely up to the prison authorities or the Minister for Justice when he should come out. That is how I feel.
“He should have known more being a deputy. I think he should have been a lot cleverer being a deputy. God almighty, no one in their right mind would go and ask a question like that. I’m gobsmacked that he even attempted to ask it in the first place.”
The victim said Mr Breen’s actions left him “very angry and very hurt”.
He said: “He shouldn’t have asked it. It is not last week’s news for the victims. It is every day for the victim.”
He added: “I would like Deputy Breen to explain to me, to say anything at all. If he didn’t understand about placing the question, grand, we’ll accept that. Say something that we can grasp onto and try to live another day.”
Imposing a sentence of six years in November 2002, Judge Brian McMahon said that Nugent had acted in a premeditated and predatory nature for his won self-gratification and that the abuse on a neighbour involved the use of physical violence by an adult on a young child.
Gordon Deegan, Irish Examiner
