A 51-year-old woman who was viciously stabbed by a man she was in a relationship with 15 years earlier has said she is living with a sense of “guilt” for bringing the man into her life.
Denis Leahy (50) of Queen Street, Dublin 7 was charged with attempting to murder Rose Kenny at the School Street Flats in Dublin 8 on September 23rd, 2014. He previously pleaded guilty to intentionally or recklessly causing serious harm to Ms Kenny at the same address on the same date.
As she read her victim impact statement in the Central Criminal Court, Ms Kenny said she asks herself every day how could she “have been such a bad judge of character” as to end up in a relationship with the accused.
The court heard that before the attack, Ms Kenny was a “normal 49-year-old woman living a normal existence.”
“I had family obligations and I had worked since the age of 14. I always had a carefree spirit that my family and friends enjoyed,” she said. “I never gave a second thought to stepping outside my house and just got on with my normal day to day activities. I tried to be a good mother, a good daughter, a good sister and generally just to be a good person.”
The court heard that her life has been divided into two segments - the period “before the attempted murder” and “after it”.
Journey
The court heard that on the morning of September 23rd, 2014, she left her flat at the usual time of 7.50am to make the 40 second journey to job at the local Family Resource Centre, which also operated as a creche.
“I was a key holder but I never got to open that morning and have never returned to my flat that I had lived in for the past 22 years,” she said. “I just couldn’t walk up them stairs again where the attack happened. I’ve relocated from an area that I lived and worked all my life and had to leave a community that I so belonged to.”
Ms Kenny told the court she was attacked that morning by a man she did not recognise as being Leahy, a man that she had shared many years with as her partner.
Although she is the victim, she said: “I have to live with the guilt I feel of how I brought this man into my life and without knowing that I put my life and that of my daughter and family and friends life in danger.
“How could I have known that he was capable of doing such gruesome things to another human being. Every day I ask myself how could I have been such a bad judge of character.”