Abused, raped and forced to give birth at 12 years-old

ABUSED at the age of two, gang raped by eight and giving birth to twins at 12.

This is the horrific story of a Dublin woman who was the victim of an Irish paedophile ring – which included her grandfather, dad and uncles.

Today Anne, not her real name, speaks about the endless years of abuse she suffered at the hands of the male and female gang of sex predators – and how she hopes to be reunited with the son she gave birth to after being raped.

“Not a day goes by that I don’t think of him,” she said in an emotional interview.

“He is 14 now, and I hope and pray he is safe…but I don’t know. All I want is answers.”

Anne, who is now 27, says she was forced to give birth in secret after falling pregnant to one of her abusers at the age of 11.

Just months into her first year of secondary school, and shortly after celebrating her 12^th birthday, she went into labour as she walked to class.

“I wasn’t very good at going to school anyway, I knew how to skip out, so that’s what I did,” she said.

“I could only go to the people who knew I was pregnant, my relatives who were also my abusers. And I was taken to a bedroom in one of their homes. “

Anne says that a number of people, including an uncle and two woman, were present in the Dublin house where she went through hours of gruelling labour, without pain relief or medical help.

She gave birth to a little boy, who she named Jamie.

“He was healthy….crying straight away. Then I said to one of the woman, I need to push again.
“This time the baby didn’t cry, he was stillborn.
She said: “I got to stay with them both for a little while, because they (abusers) started to panic. They didn’t know what to do, they kept saying, we didn’t know she was having two.
“Then they came back, and then they told me put the stillborn baby into a box, then in to a bag. Then they made me put him before him in the bin.
Breaking down in tears, Anne said: “They told me had to do it, because it was my fault I got pregnant.”

The next day, as the 12 year-old child stayed holed up in her abuser’s home, the baby boy was removed from her care.

Anne believes the child was illegally registered and brought up not that far from the house where he was born.

She does not know what ever became of the tiny, lifeless body of his brother.

“I don’t know if my other son ended up in the bin truck or if he was buried in the garden of one of their (abusers) homes” she said. “Again, I don’t know. It is something I think about every day.”

Her shocking case echoes that of the Dalkey ‘House of Horrors’ horror, which involved Cynthia Owen who gave birth to a baby girl when she was a child.
The baby was stabbed to death and dumped in a laneway. No one has ever been charged in relation to that case.

The years of abuse finally ended when Anne turned 15.

“I was no good to them anymore, I was no longer a child,” she said.

As she reached her late teens, she was eventually moved away from her abusive relatives, but still struggled with the effect of the abuse.

In 2014, after years of self harm and suicidal attempts, Anne opened up to a close female relative about her hell, and then bravely went to gardai.

The Minister of Justice has since ordered a full garda report into the alleged sex ring case.

The Garda Commissioner and Tusla child and family agency have also been notified.

The Star has also seen a letter from a gynaecologist who examined Anne in a bid to prove her pregnancy to gardai.
In the letter dated January 22, 2016, a gynaecologist wrote: “I would not dispute the fact that she could have been pregnant previously.”

One of her abusers, a convicted paedophile, passed away before Anne could report the abuse.

Despite the rest being questioned by gardai, they all still walk the streets.

“I know for a fact there are other victims.” she said. “I know because we abused in front of one another.

“We were even made to abuse each other. It was an open secret.”

Although Anne hopes that her alleged abusers will face justice, she says her main priority is finding the son who was cruelly stolen from her.

“I want to find my son and be reunited with him,” she said. “If he is in a safe and loving home, I wouldn’t dream of taking him away from that. “But what if he is not? What if he is in danger?”

This story originally appeared in the Irish Daily Star in April 2016