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
FINE Gael TD, Pat Breen yesterday failed to respond to a call from the primary victim of sex offender, Joseph Nugent to apologise for tabling a Dáil question inquiring into the possibility of the rapist’s early release.
Nugent, a 74 year old bachelor farmer, from Dromellihy, Cree, 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.
The victim, now aged 47, spoke publicly yesterday for the first time about the hurt caused by Deputy Breen’s tabling of the question.
“I really think Mr Breen should apologise if has any decency in him at all. Not alone to me and my family, but apologise to all the victims out there that have been hurt by this. It takes a man to apologise.”
Yesterday morning, Deputy Breen was emailed the text of the victim’s comments, but failed to return phone calls made during the day.
The victim confirmed that he was admitted to Ennis General Hospital as a result of the stress brought on by the publicity surrounding Deputy Breen tabling the question.
Now released from hospital care, he said: “This has set me back a year in my recovery. We’re reliving the attacks.”
Mr Nugent is due for release in February 2008. In response to Deputy Breen’s question when Nugent would 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 form of early release.
The victim last week phoned the offices of The Clare People to make public his views on the matter.
He said yesterday: “I just felt bad and hurtful about 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 gardaí 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 man said that Deputy Breen tabling the question had left him, “very angry and very hurt”.
He said: “He shouldn’t have asked it. In the papers, it said that it was last week’s news, it might be last week’s news for them. It is not last week’s news for the victims. It is every day for the victim.
“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 own self-gratification and beastly pleasure and that the abuse on a neighbour involved the use of physical violence by an adult on a young child.