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Updated 12.05pm
CONVICTED RAPIST PATRICK O’Brien will spend another seven years in prison following a new sentence hearing in the Court of Appeal today.
The 74-year-old from Oldcourt in Bray, Wicklow was found guilty of repeatedly raping his daughter Fiona Doyle between 1973 and 1982 in 2013.
His original sentence of 12 years with nine suspended was found to be unduly lenient last month.
Today the judge handed down a new sentence of 12 years – with just three suspended.
O’Brien has already spent two years in prison and was due for release later in 2015. That date will now be pushed out to 2022.
Speaking outside the court, his daughter Fiona Doyle told TheJournal.ie:
I’m not a victim anymore, I’m now a survivor and that makes all the difference.
She also said justice has finally been served. “It has been a long road and it has been hard – it has had its ups and downs but we got through it.
“My face is so different to two years ago, this is two years of counselling and sorting my head out and getting on the right path. I’m delighted.”
O’Brien raped and sexually abused his daughter Fiona Doyle at Mackintosh Park, Pottery Road in Dun Laoghaire. The abuse began the night before her First Holy Communion in 1973.
This morning Patrick O’Brien’s legal team stated that the plea of guilty is extremely important in cases of sexual abuse and particularly in cases of historic sexual abuse.
It must attract generous mitigation or there will be no incentive for other offenders to enter a plea.
“Victims can often be abused as children and disbelieved as adults – a plea of guilty removes one of those wrongs.”
Last month Mr Justice Sean Ryan said although old age and ill health can be taken as mitigating factors, there is no rule that prevents the sickly from being sent to prison.
He also said that in this case, O’Brien would be treated as well in prison as he is in the community.
He will now remain behind bars for the next seven years – to be released aged 81.
With reporting by Sinéad O’Carroll
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The media has a a vitally important democratic function to perform in making Trump and his current administration fully visible.
Media exposure will highlight what Trump is about.
@Johnny Leddin: only Trump worries about thumbs. It is his downfall.
@Tony Daly: like they did with clinton…right…
Exactly like Clinton. He was hounded by the media after his affair in office.
The media should be treated with contempt!
What do reporters think the new administration is playing at?…to me it seems like some sort of Bond plot where the obvious is a diversion to what is really going on…there are bigger things cooking in the background which they don’t want us to know about.
@winston smith: the focus is on Trump’s temperament at the moment and the increasing realisation that Trump is temperamentally unsuitable to be President of the US.
@Tony Daly: is that a fact or just your anti trump opinion….
Trump won because of a fawning uncritical ratings-driven media which gave him billions in free publicity.
@Were Jammin: he won because hillary took her eye of the ball and wouldn’t listen to the fears many people have in the US regarding immigration..she just called them all deplorables. That is a fact
@Were Jammin: he won because hillary took her eye of the ball and wouldn’t listen to the fears many people have in the US regarding immigration..she just called them all deplorables. That is a fact
@Were Jammin: Trump won because the media were uncritical of him – are you on drugs?
The media is ‘temperamentally unsuitable’ to cover the White House.
What’s most fascinating about this article is the constant use of “said one reporter” for even the most mundane observation. Did The Journal not get their names, or did the reporters insist on strict anonymity for reasons beyond my ken; or, more troublingly, does The Journal imagine itself a Player in DC political media who needs to keep their “sources” secret lest Trump’s team read this article?
The Media is frantically trying to do an about-face. From the time “President” nominated, they fawned over him because he gave them lots of meat and potatoes, encouraged by Murdoch, Kochs etc… Then, against all the pundits and odds, he became POTUS. 60+ days in, and the media are looking at themselves in horror, that they facilitated this Con Man get the Oval Office. Now, they’re falling over themselves to get him and his misbegotten, incompetent hangers-on out. There is enough blame to go around, so the media have now to start doing things right.
Surprised the Journal was allowed in.
You cannot hope to bribe or twist – thank God! – the average journalist…
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