A young man who was raped as an 11-year-old boy has told his abuser that he will not carry the guilt anymore \u2013 that he is \u201creclaiming my voice, my story and my life\u201d.<\/p>\n
Devin O\u2019Donnell (19) was reading from his victim impact statement at the Central Criminal Court sentence hearing of Joseph Campbell (63) of Castle Court, Daingean, Co Offaly.<\/p>\n
Campbell, who is the father of Mr O\u2019Donnell\u2019s stepmother, was jailed for eight and a half years on Monday.<\/p>\n
Campbell maintains his innocence and does not accept the verdict of the jury.<\/p>\n
Fionnuala O\u2019Sullivan SC, prosecuting, told the court that Mr O\u2019Donnell wishes to waive his right to anonymity so Campbell can be named in reporting the case.<\/p>\n
Planted silence<\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Donnell said in his victim impact statement: \u201cYou didn\u2019t just hurt me in that moment, you changed how I experienced the world. You planted silence inside me.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd for a long time, I felt that silence keep my quiet, because the shame felt louder than my voice. But I\u2019m not that scared little child anymore.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m speaking now, not because I\u2019m over it but because I am choosing to fight for myself, even when it is hard.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you did stole parts of my life that I will never get back. But you didn\u2019t take everything. You didn\u2019t take my strength. You didn\u2019t take my future. You didn\u2019t take my ability to heal.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am still here. And I\u2019m slowly learning that I was never the one who should have felt ashamed, you were,\u201d Mr O\u2019Donnell continued.<\/p>\n
Campbell was convicted following a trial last June on what is termed as section 4 rape \u2013 anal rape \u2013 at Mr O\u2019Donnell\u2019s home in October 2017.<\/p>\n
He had denied the charges. Further charges of sexual assault perpetrated by Campbell on the victim in December 2021 were taken into account.<\/p>\n
Following his victim impact statement during an earlier sentence hearing last July, Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring said to the teenager that her advice would be that it is never too late to return to education.<\/p>\n
Sentencing Campbell on Monday, she noted Mr O\u2019Donnell\u2019s \u201cresilience\u201d and said he had faced many challenges throughout his life.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was preyed upon by a person whom he should have trusted \u2013 no child should have to have these experiences,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Speaking about Mr O\u2019Donnell, she said it was clear that he is \u201cloved by many\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile this abuse has marked him, it should not define him. He is so much more than what Joseph Campbell did to him,\u201d Ms Justice Ring said before<\/p>\n
She added that she hopes \u201cnew normal and happy life events will outweigh this experience\u201d before she wished Mr O\u2019Donnell all the best for the future.<\/p>\n
Ms Justice Ring said the aggravating features included the fact that Campbell was \u201ca grandfather figure in the family structure\u201d and \u201cbreached the trust that such a role brings\u201d.<\/p>\n
She further noted that he does not accept the verdict and has shown no insight or victim empathy.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe threatened an 11-year-old whose mother had just died \u2013 the psychological and emotional abuse that causes extends the physical harm,\u201d Ms Justice Ring said.<\/p>\n
She accepted in mitigation that Campbell has no previous convictions.<\/p>\n
Ms Justice Ring set a headline sentence of 11 years before reducing the sentence to 10 years. She suspended the final 18 months of that term after acknowledging that Campbell\u2019s \u201cre-entry into society\u201d would be difficult.<\/p>\n
Campbell was further ordered that neither he, nor anyone on his behalf, should have contact with Mr O\u2019Donnell either directly or indirectly, while he is in prison and for a further five years after his release.<\/p>\n
Concurrent terms of six years were imposed for the sexual assault offences and Campbell was also ordered to engage with the Probation Service for 12 months upon his release from prison.<\/p>\n
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie\/services\/helpline\/ or visit Rape Crisis Help.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A young man who was raped as an 11-year-old boy has told his abuser that he will not…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-63769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}