BY CLAIRE CORRIGAN
LAST WEEK saw the introduction of the first stage of a new bill in the Dáil chamber, that will mean repeat sex offenders will serve longer jail terms, put forward by Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran.
Also in attendance at Wednesday’s press conference was Debbie Cole from Mullingar, who has led a campaign for repeat sex offenders to serve longer jail terms.
“I was attacked in June 1989 when I was 19. I was living in Dublin and there was a band that used to play in the Harp Bar every Wednesday and the lead singer was a good friend of mine,” Debbie told Topic.
It was here that a very well-dressed and well-spoken man by the name of Robert Melia stopped the young woman on her way to the bathroom and told her he had made a bet with his friends regarding her relationship status.
When she replied that she was single he said he had won £20 and wanted to buy her a drink. “He came over to where me and my friend were and told me he was in the Irish Naval Service and I had no reason to doubt him.”
As she was leaving, Robert said that his brother lived near Debbie’s home at Balcurris Road, Ballymun and asked if they could share a taxi.
“The three of us shared a taxi home and my friend needed the bathroom so she ran on to the house.”
As Debbie turned towards the house she was dragged backwards by her hair and had a knife held to her throat before being subjected to a brutal two and a half hour ordeal.
“I was actually very lucky compared to what he did to the women he raped after me when he was released,” Debbie stressed.
The Gardaí were contacted immediately while Debbie’s brother raced downstairs to try and locate her attacker.
“I went to the Rape Crisis Centre at the Rotunda Hospital.”
From the date of the attack in 1989 to the trial in 1991, Robert pleaded not guilty, only changing his plea on the first day of the court proceedings. He was remanded in custody for two weeks while the Judge decided on the sentence he would hand down.
“I was still suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which I didn’t realise. He had tried to commit suicide before and I believed at the time I would be responsible if he did, so I spoke up for him during the sentencing.”
He was sentenced to six years in Mountjoy but was transferred to the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum two days later. He then began sending letters to Debbie declaring his love for her and stating he would kill himself if she didn’t go to see him.
“I went and it was horrendous. That night I took my mother’s medication and ran under the stairs near the flats where the rape had happened and sat there and took all the pills. I just wanted to end it all. My mother brought me to the Mater Hospital that night.”
Debbie never heard from Robert again until 1997 when on his release from prison, he went on to rape three more women in just one month. “Then two years ago in 2015, he attacked a woman in Caulfield’s Hotel in Dublin. He told her that he was going to bring her up the Dublin mountains and chop her up and kill her. She jumped from the hotel window and got the Gardaí. He jumped out the window afterwards and broke his legs.”
It was then that Debbie started a campaign to implement longer sentences for serial sex offenders. “When he reoffended for the fourth time, I thought ‘This is ridiculous and has to stop.’ I started lobbying the Minister for Justice and I set up a Facebook Page for the campaign.”
During last year’s General Election Debbie met Deputy Kevin ‘Boxer’ Moran. “He said he would get in touch with me after the election, whether he was successful or not, and try and do something. It was the first honest answer I had been given.”
In May of last year, Debbie met with the Deputy at his Athlone office and discussed her campaign with him in detail. “I secured a meeting with Senior Officials from the Department of Justice. At that stage I was looking for the three strikes law that they have in the US where you are locked up for life.”
Debbie met with Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald last October in the Justice Department to discuss her concerns with the current sentences being handed down to sex offenders.
“I was expecting a real stand-offish woman that was going to nod in the right place, say the right thing and shake my hand and say goodbye but it was totally different. She really engaged with me. I had been emailed a number of statistics from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) which looked at repeat offenders and people who reoffend while out on bail so I was armed with a lot of information when I went before her.
“I said that in my opinion and from the studies I have seen, most sex offenders cannot be rehabilitated. Some of them will do the rehabilitation course in prison but many don’t believe they are doing anything wrong so they are not going to change their ways,” Debbie commented.
She said that Deputy Moran’s legal advisor Eugene Deering devised an amendment to an existing bill, The Criminal Justice Act 2007.
“It will be mean that a judge will have to give a minimum of three quarters of the maximum sentence which is life, on a second or subsequent offence which is a big improvement on the current sentences.”
Debbie said that her attacker could be released from jail as early as 2020. “Robert got eight years two years ago so he will serve six which means he will be out in another three or four years and roaming freely again in society. He’s only in his early 50s and can easily reoffend again. They are learning the mistakes to avoid when they are in prison and swapping ‘tricks of the trade’ if you like.”
She said she is hopeful that by that time, the new law will be in place. “When he comes out and if he reoffends, this law will be in place and it will keep him off the streets for a long time.”
Debbie had a word of warning for women who may be duped into a false sense of security.
“You are brought up to have this image of a rapist as a man in a trench coat in a lane way but this guy was so well-dressed and so well-spoken that I felt comfortable and relaxed around him. There were literally no red flags,” Debbie warned.
