This article is from page 4 of the 2006-11-07 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 4 JPG
A 47-YEAR old man said yesterday that he had lost 42 years of his life as a result of been abused by west Clare farmer Joseph Nugent and vowed, “I am not going to lose the rest”.
Four years ago, 74-year old bachelor farmer, Joseph Nugent, from Dromellihy, Cree was sentenced to six years in jail for the abuse of the local boy.
Imposing sentence in November 2002, Judge Brian McMahon said that Nugent had acted in a premeditated and predatory nature for his own self-gratification and beastly pleasure.
The judge said that the abuse on a neighbour, who was aged eight when the abuse started, involved the use of physical violence by an adult on a young child.
A second conviction was secured against Nugent for crimes against another young boy in 2004.
Mr Nugent’s crimes are now back in the spotlight as a result of Fine Gael deputy, Pat Breen tabling a Dáil question into the possibility of Nugent being eligible for an early release. Mr Nugent is due for release in February 2008.
The victim and a father of three told The Clare People: “What were we? Innocent children. We couldn’t add three and three. Someone came along and not alone did they do awful things, but they took away your childhood and they took away the rest of your life. It should be no different to murder. The sentence he got was nothing really, but I have to respect the law and that was the judge’s decision on the day.”
There has never been an apology from Nugent for his crimes. The victim said: “He has never shown any remorse, never apologised. A line would be nothing to Mr Nugent to write a line or any of his solicitors to write a line. A line would mean a thousand lines to a victim.
“It would mean that he has shown some remorse, the statement that he thought more of his cattle than his victims. Are they still his feelings?”
After he was first raped by Nugent, the victim went to tell his mother of the attack.
He says: “When I told my mother when the first attack happened, she said ‘go away ar’ that’ and when I asked her about it in the years later, she said she didn’t understand that there was anything going on like that. Old people couldn’t believe that.
“One of the best things was when we made it up on her deathbed. She said sorry and asked would I ever forgive her and I said yes. I said to her, ‘you explained to me that you didn’t know – that there was none in your day, you didn’t know, grand so’ and we cuddled and she died the day after.”
He added: “There has been very good support from the community. Not at first though, because they were fairly filled with lies before they found out the truth. The community is brilliant, I couldn’t ask for better. You will have the few on their side, you will get that in any case, that’s only natural. I have no bad feelings towards them.”
The man was speaking at an Ennis hotel last Thursday in the company of his psychiatric nurse and broke down several times during the interview.
He said: “It split the family very bad, that was a sorrowful thing. It split both my sisters away from me. They understand now that they were told lies and they have come back and apologised to me. It was hard for them to apologise and they have been good to me ever since. I can walk into any of their houses anytime and have a cuppa tea and they are there in two seconds if I am having a bad day. I’m sure that it hurts them as well that they didn’t understand.”
He tells of the challenge in going to the Garda to make a complaint over the attacks from Nugent.
He said: “He was a big farmer, well-to-do, with a new car every year. He was always in the best of clothes, a pillar of society in the area. It was a lot to take on for someone who wasn’t as well off. Someone that had depression and was living through hell, but you take each day as it comes.”
He added: “When it is a big person, big people in life, it is as if they had a right to do it you because you were poor. He thought that his cattle were more important to him than me. What does that tell you?”
The 47-year old victim who came forward to The Clare People last week said: “The local gossip going around was that the two of us (Nugent’s other victim) were meeting up regular and we had it all planned to get the money.
“We had every sort of a plan going. It was put out that I didn’t get my own place at home and that I was only after his place. What a load of rubbish. It wasn’t about that. It was about justice. I have never seen the other victim since and it would be nice to have a chat.
“I was so glad that I got something out of it, got a sentence and put this bad man out of society. We didn’t do it for money. Money wasn’t a care. I am not rich, I would be in the lower poor bracket, but at least I got my wife, my kids, my close friends and my nurse and my doctors.”
He advises that other abuse victims go and find help, “because you will not cope with it alone. My heart bleeds for the crathurs.”
He said: “I was smiling on the outside and dying on the inside. I was laughing through depression. I laughed myself through the last 41 or 42 years. Some people, God love them, they didn’t make it like. I have close friends that didn’t.”
The man says that his children bring him a lot of happiness. He said: “They don’t know how much they help me. It is happy that you have someone at the end of the day. I like the married life, it is great to come home to someone that they understand and love you. That’s it. My nurse is my angel and I have an angel at home in my wife. I am fairly religious and that has brought me through a lot.”
The man has not worked since the outcome of the trial four years ago. He said: “I have very severe depression, serious stuff. I have only to see someone that resembles him and that just brings it all back.
“I could be having a lovely day. I could be at Salthill in Galway and walking down the beach and see someone that resembles him and that would set me back again. I would be walking along and it gets inside your mind, it eats at your mind and you just start crying walking down the street.
“I’m very optimistic for the future. It’s getting me down now because of what was in the paper. I don’t know what plans for the future are.
Nugent is due for release in February 2008 and the victim said: “I have been advised to move to another area of the parish from being next door and seeing him every day. It is going to be tough, you certainly wouldn’t want your children running around when the man is released.”