Kevin Owen McDonnell, Barman, Bangor Erris, County Mayo will be sentenced next month after being found guilty of raping two children. The girls were aged 8 and 10 years when they were systematically raped in the toilets of the pub where McDonnell worked in Bangor Erris, County Mayo.
There have been calls for Barmen/women to be vetted as they have access to children. A Mayo man is to be sentenced today for regularly sexually assaulting two children in the pub where he worked over 11 years ago.
The 39-year-old man, was convicted at the Central Criminal Court having been tried on 56 charges of sexual assault and rape on dates between June 1999 and September 2000.
The trial heard the girls were between eight and 10 years old at the time of the abuse.
They would go to one of the girls' mother's workplace after school and had developed the practice of watching cartoons in a nearby pub where they regularly used the toilet. They were sexually abused and Raped during these visits by the accused who was a barman.
One of the girls gave evidence that she did not report the abuse until 2008 because she thought it was her own fault. After McDonnell was convicted one victim said her life could now "really begin" while the other said it was a "dream come true".
Other Stories
Life for Liars
Following a number of high profile cases involving false allegations of rape and sexual assault calls have been made for anyone making such false allegations to face a sentence of up to life in prison, as the consequences for the victims of such false allegations are on an equal power with real victims of rape and sexual assault.
RTÉ LAST night rebroadcast its apology to Fr Kevin Reynolds regarding its libel of the priest in the Prime Time Investigates – Mission to Prey programme.
The decision to re-record the apology and rebroadcast it after last night’s Nine O’Clock News was taken by director general Noel Curran. It followed criticism of the original apology, broadcast on November 17th last, after members of the RTÉ board raised questions at a meeting this week about the manner in which the original apology had been run.
Fr Reynolds was told in advance the apology was to be rebroadcast last night. The first broadcast of the “correction order” demanded by the High Court after RTÉ settled the case was criticised by viewers, who said it was read out at speed and in a monotone.
The action for libel made over the programme resulted in a seven-figure settlement by RTÉ in favour of the priest on November 17th.
Since then, two inquiries have begun into why the programme-makers went ahead with the allegation Fr Reynolds had raped a minor and had a child in Kenya 30 years ago, yet failed to take up his offer of a paternity test.
It has been learned Mr Curran offered to step down from his post after the results of the paternity test of Fr Reynolds became known. This was confirmed by a spokesman for RTÉ last night.
The spokesman said Mr Curran, as editor-in-chief, told board chairman Tom Savage he was prepared to step down. The offer had been made “in recognition of the gravity of the error made by the programme and of the injury done to Fr Reynolds, and notwithstanding that the decision to broadcast the programme was, as is normal in RTÉ, made at divisional rather than corporate level”.
“The offer was firmly rejected by the chairman on the basis that Mr Curran was not involved in the decision-making process on the programme. It was agreed that the imperative was for the director general, as chief executive and editor-in-chief, to lead the internal investigation into how the programme was originated, prepared and produced for air in a defamatory form.”
The spokesman said the activity set in train by Mr Curran, including internal reviews and an external review by Press Ombudsman John Horgan, would be completed before a meeting of the RTÉ board on December 15th.
Mr Curran plans to make a series of recommendations to this meeting. The spokesman added RTÉ news managing editor Ed Mulhall and current affairs editor Ken O’Shea had both offered to step aside after talks with Mr Curran prior to the meeting of the board last Wednesday.
