A NOTORIOUS Dublin criminal has been jailed for 10 years for one of the “most repulsive” sex offences ever encountered at the Central Criminal Court.
Mr Justice Paul Carney declared Stephen “Rossi” Walsh (62) of Belgrave Road, Rathgar, a sex offender for raping a nine-year-old girl in the early 1990s.
The judge imposed seven years of post-release supervision, and warned Walsh he could be jailed again if he fails to abide by its terms.
Outside court, Walsh’s victim Ruth Dunne (now 25), waived her right to anonymity, and said: “I am pleased with the results and justice that has been done here today.
“I am glad that this man has been exposed to the public for what he really is. I would like to thank my family, partner and everyone who has supported me. I would especially like to thank the court support service, my counsel and Mr Justice Paul Carney.”
Before sentence was imposed, Ms Dunne said in a victim impact statement read out by Isobel Kennedy, prosecuting, that she had been attending counselling since 2004 for post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and feelings of shame and self-loathing.
She said that aside from “severe physical pain and soreness”, she’d felt confused and fearful after the rapes. She described feeling scared for her sister the day Walsh took the two girls in his car to a beach area and raped his victim behind a rock during a game of “hide-and-seek”.
She recalled feeling “sick” when Walsh made her play a blindfolded game he’d called “guess-the-fruit-and-veg”. The young woman described her relief when she learned her attacker had been jailed for arson in a television news report in 1993, but said she “felt sick” when she heard of his release years later.
She said she had to take several days off work when she saw him by chance leaning on a wall in Dublin last year ahead of the case, adding that being called a liar under cross-examination and waiting on the jury’s decision at the trial’s end was the “worst time” of her life.
“What happened to me has not gone away; it will never go away. I am a victim of real child abuse,” she stated.
The jury took seven hours on day four of the trial to find Walsh guilty of the offences between January 1st and November 9th, 1993.
Pleas of not guilty had been entered on Walsh’s behalf after he refused to indicate which way he was pleading to the two counts of rape and one count of oral rape.
He has 10 previous convictions, including one for arson, for which he was sentenced to 15 years at the Special Criminal Court in 1993.
Mr Justice Carney commented that the “guess-the-fruit-and-veg” game was one of the most repulsive sex offences he had ever encountered in his 18 years as a judge, and that he could see no mitigating factors in the defence case.
He said he found it “particularly revolting” that Walsh had planned the “sex game” by purchasing the fruit and vegetables in a local Spar shop beforehand.
He noted the “inherent gravity” of the attacks, the young age of the victim, and Walsh’s threats to the victim’s parents.
Mr Justice Carney said he could find no mitigating factors to reduce Walsh’s sentence.
He said Walsh had “disentitled” himself to the most important forms of mitigation – an early guilty plea, genuine remorse and previous good character.