The founder of the illegal Radio Dublin pirate station has been remanded in custody for sentence after being found guilty of sexually assaulting young girls at his home some 30 years ago.
Eamonn "Captain" Cooke (70), with addresses at Heatherview Avenue, Tallaght, and Wheatfields Court, Clondalkin, was unanimously convicted by a jury at the Central Criminal Court on all 42 charges before it.
The jury reached its guilty verdicts in just 59 minutes on Wednesday night on 37 counts and, after spending a night in a hotel, brought in its guilty verdicts on the remaining five counts following a further 30 minutes deliberating.
Ms Justice Maureen Clark remanded Cooke in custody for sentence later pending the preparation of reports.
Ms Justice Clark thanked the jury of five men and six women for its care and attention to a case that began just one month ago and had 16 days of hearing both in the presence and absence of the jury.
Cooke had denied the 42 charges of indecent assault on two complainants on dates from January 1974 to May 1978 at an address in Dublin. He claimed the allegations were made to "blacken my name" and to divert attention away from an employee he said he fired for "embezzling money from the company" which ran the illegal radio station.
One of the victims told Patrick McCarthy SC, prosecuting, that she took an overdose after no one would give her advice about the abuse she had experienced as a child from Cooke, the man she and her friends nicknamed "the cookie monster".
She said she took the overdose after being told to get on with her life and look after her family by both her GP and local priest when she sought help from them about the abuse in the mid-1990s after reading a newspaper interview with Cooke talking about his wife's allegations of clerical sexual abuse. "That was when I took the overdose."
She was then referred to specialist counsellors but withdrew from counselling when told she would have to name Cooke. She said she was still too scared at that time.
She said the abuse started when she was about seven years old and continued until sometime before her 11th birthday. She said local children had regularly gone to play in Cooke's garage which contained an interesting assortment of broken televisions and telephones.
When she first started going she had always played with a particular phone. One day the phone was moved on to a shelf and Cooke lifted her up to get it. "His hands went under my clothes to lift me up."
She said they kept going back because he was nice to them and didn't throw them out. "We nicknamed him the cookie monster." The abuse continued and became more severe.
Another of the women described how she and some friends had discovered the door to Cooke's garage open and found several broken television sets with the screens missing. She said they were playing at "being on TV" when Cooke walked in. They were scared at being caught but Cooke told them it was okay.
He then asked them if they wanted to be on TV. When they said yes he told them to return in a couple of days, when he filmed them doing the can-can. She and her friend continued to go to Cooke's house on a regular basis after this. She said Cooke told them they would be put in a home if they told anyone.