Warning: This episode deals with child sexual abuse and listeners may find it upsetting

Last month, Sligo musician Noel Farrell was sentenced to 20 years in prison after being convicted on sample counts of sexually abusing five of his children.

The Central Criminal Court heard how they were neglected, starved, locked in their rooms for days, raped, and beaten – and how after receiving medical treatment for rape-related injuries, they were returned to their father.

Their mother Tessie, a chronic alcoholic, was not believed when she told locals what Farrell was doing to the children and reported him to the Gardaí. The children were removed from her care on the grounds of neglect, but returned to Farrell for unsupervised visits, when he continued raping them.

Sentencing Farrell, Justice Tony Hunt said “One runs out of words in trying to describe the depths plumbed in this particular case. I say this as a way of trying to illustrate how extreme and awful the nature of the facts in this case are.”

Irish Examiner reporter Alison O’Reilly interviewed Amanda, Helen, Jessie and Christopher, four of the Farrell siblings, who say they were repeatedly failed by the State. On today’s episode she describes the court proceedings and the siblings’ reaction to finding justice at last, for them and their mother.

'We were treated for rape-related injuries and still sent back into his care'

Man gets 20 years for sexual abuse of his five children in a 'grotesque breach of parental trust'

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