Ms Nora Wall, the former nun whose life sentence for raping a 10-year-old was quashed last July, has said she bears no ill-will towards her accusers.
Ms Wall was speaking on RTE news after the DPP announced he would not be seeking a retrial of Ms Wall and her co-accused, Mr Paul McCabe. She spoke of her feelings towards Ms Regina Walsh, now 21, whom she was accused of raping with Mr McCabe, and a key prosecution witness, Ms Patricia Phelan.
"I'm not bitter and have no ill-feelings against them," she said. Ms Walsh had been in the care of the former Sister of Mercy nun at St Michael's Care Centre in Cappoquin, Co Waterford when the incident was alleged to have taken place 10 years ago.
Ms Wall told of her reaction when gardai arrested her for questioning.
"I couldn't understand what they were saying to me at first . . . when they said rape. I said `I was never raped' . . . It didn't make sense," she said.
"Then they said Regina Walsh . . . I was just turning it around in my mind how this could be. Then they mentioned Paul. That didn't make sense at all".
"I said I couldn't even think like that, never mind do a thing like that," she said.
When she received the book of evidence 11 months later, she travelled to Knock. After reading the book of evidence in a church, she said, she felt at peace with herself.
She then wrote letters to her brothers and sisters. "I remember I used four Ds. I said I've read the book and I can cope with it, there is nothing in it that I can't defend, deny, discuss or debate," she said.
Asked whether she was angry at the treatment of her by gardai, she said: "I think they could have been nicer to me. Verbally".
