Mother jailed for long term ‘deviant’ abuse of children

THE Down District mother at the centre of one of the most horrific child abuse cases to come before the courts in Northern Ireland has been jailed for over five years.

The woman who kept her children in “almost unimaginable” conditions and forced them to watch her have sex with men, including her own brothers, was sentenced on Friday along with her brothers, her estranged husband and two other men — former RUC reservist Tommy Fitzpatrick, from Ardglass, and Newcastle baker Patrick Kilmartin.

The sentences were imposed as two of her children outlined how the “nightmare of sexual depravity and abuse” had blighted their childhood and had a devastating long term impact on their lives.

One of her sons said he had tried to take his own life repeatedly, while one of her daughters recalled a “cold and starving” childhood.

Both have criticised the role of social services at the time.

At Belfast Crown Court on Friday, Mr. Justice Horner told the mother, who cannot be named to protect the identity of her children, that neither she or her husband had been prepared to accept any responsibility for the abuse.

“Your chilly indifference to your children’s welfare generally, and your complicity in the sexually deviant behaviour you inflicted speaks of a heartless tormentor interested primarily in her own pleasures and enjoyment,” he said.

“Not only are you pathetic, weak willed and inept but you are also selfish and uncaring.”

The woman, who lived in the Newcastle area, had pleaded guilty to 17 counts of cruelty and six of gross indecency. She was considered to be the ringleader of the offending, with 49 charges in total brought between the six defendants.

Imposing the five year eight month sentence, the judge said he accepted she was a woman of low intelligence and not a predatory paedophile but told her he was “still uncertain whether your motivation was sexual gratification or sexual arousal from the children’s humiliation or whether it was simply because of the need to control”.

Mr. Justice Horner said her husband had also shown no genuine remorse, and although capable of acts of kindness “administered a number of beatings...often savage beatings” provoked by trivialities such as a child refusing to eat or spilling sauce on a dress.

The man, who is in his sixties, admitted 17 charges of wilful neglect and was jailed for four years.

The judge told him he had left his children to the mercies of their mother, although he accepted he had “no idea that the children were being exposed to sexual acts by their mother and others”.

The court previously heard he used his belt to administer “hidings”, leading one of his children to wet herself in fear.

Fifty-three year-old former RUC reservist Thomas Fitzpatrick was jailed for 18 months after admitting one count of indecent assault and one of gross indecency, during which one of the children was made to watch him have sex with his mother.

He also admitted assaulting one of the girls by punching her in the stomach.

The judge said an unremorseful Fitzpatrick, originally from Crewhill Gardens in Ardglass, was often drunk and his pleas came late in the day when “he regretted being unfaithful to his wife”.

He told Fitzpatrick he had blamed his frequent intoxication “in part due to your role as a policeman and the stress you were under in carrying out tour duties at a difficult time because of terrorists”, and noted “there may be some force in this”.

Patrick Kilmartin (60), of Kinghill Avenue, Newcastle, was jailed for a year for sexually touching one of the children and the court heard such was his “shock and disgust” that he had not had a drink since.

One of the uncles involved in the abuse was jailed for two years and nine months, while the other was freed on a suspended sentence.

Mr. Justice Horner said the first, in his sixties, had not only sexually touched his nephew, but forced him to watch as he had sex with his own sister.

Turning to his brother, who is in his seventies, and who admitted committing a sex act with his sister while his nephew watched, the judge said it was accepted he was at “the bottom end of culpability” compared to the others.

He said the man now cut a “solitary and isolated figure” and in the circumstances his six month sentence could be suspended for two years.

Referring to the details of the horrific abuse and cruelty suffered by the children in their rodent infested home, which was previously outlined to the court, Mr. Justice Horner said: “What these four children had to endure is almost unimaginable. They were neither properly clothed nor fed. They were often hungry. Their diet was poor. They were allowed to run wild.

“What discipline was administered by their parents was often physically abusive.”

In his sentencing remarks Mr. Justice Horner also noted that historic sexual abuse cases presented the courts with significant difficulty. He said sentencing must be based on the maximum sentence prescribed by legislation at the time the offence was committed. These penalties have since increased.

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