A young woman who from the age of six was physically and sexually abused by her father has told the High Court that she had sworn she would one day "get my father" for what he was doing to her and that people would believe her and not regard her as "a silly child". Ms Sophia McColgan broke down a number of times as she described the assaults inflicted on herself, her sister and brothers by their father, Joseph McColgan, who is serving a 12-year sentence after admitting 26 token assault charges.
She said she hoped abused children would be helped in the future and she did not believe that the £20 million awarded to the GAA in the Budget would help the many hurt children who had endured enormous abuse. Some had died from this tyranny, she said.
Ms McColgan (27) was giving evidence on the second day of her action for damages against the North Western Health Board and Dr Desmond Moran, of Stephen Street, Sligo, stated to be the family doctor. Three other members of the family have also brought actions.
The court has heard the assaults against the McColgan children by their father happened from 1978 to the late 1980s or early 1990s. Ms McColgan, formerly of Bal linacarrow, Ballymote, Co Sligo, now living in Castlebar, Co Mayo, works as a laboratory technician in Ballina.
In court yesterday she said she had made a statement in 1993 about the abuse but left out certain details because she could not describe them. After counselling, it was no longer any shame to her and "it was not my fault". She felt let down by the system.
She had lived for a time with her grandparents in Co Sligo and, until her parents returned from Britain in 1976 when she was six, had a lovely childhood. Her pa rents bought a derelict cottage and renovated it.
Mr James Nugent SC, for Ms McColgan, asked her what started to happen and she broke down. She said her father beat her violently all the time with anything he could get his hands on. He also beat her mother, brothers and sister. At Rosses Point one day, he tried to drown her and three other members of the family. Her father was so angry that he just wanted them to be afraid of him.
About July 1979, she believed he was going to molest her in the cottage. When she refused, he hit her off the handle of a door and her nose broke. She was taken to hospital and told doctors and others her father had beaten her.
She said her father had first sexually assaulted her in a bog on a beautiful sunny day. The sex abuse continued in the shed, field and other places and after Mass on Sunday. She never told the hospital about the sexual assault. She was unable to and no one gave her the space or the time.
She felt she had to get an education so that she could stand on the same level as everybody who was there at the time, and so that she could say: "This happened and you didn't help me".
Ms McColgan said the children were often brought to see Dr Moran. All were ill from what was happening. They might be left in the waiting room for an hour while their father talked to the doctor. She would go in and he would shine a light down her throat, ask her if she was OK, write a prescription and send her home.
A social worker came now and again to the house after an incident in which their father broke her brother's arm with a shovel. Their father would send the children to a bedroom until the social worker had gone. Often the children were left in the room for 10 to 12 hours with no food. Ms McColgan said her father said she was under his control and "his piece" to do with what he wanted.
After her brother Gerry was taken into care in 1983, she thought help would come but nothing happened. As she became physically stronger, she began to hit her father back and he continued to hit her. She was 21 when she was thrown out, in her nightdress, at 4 a.m. one morning. She felt enormous guilt leaving the other children and wanted to get her father behind bars.
Counselling had forced her to confront what she was going through and to stick the court case and media pressure. Some people in her village had mocked and belittled them. She suffered from panic attacks and nightmares and had been suicidal. There was an "embryo of past cruelty" inside her and she tried to fight it. "I love my son and my partner and I hope we can make a good future together and can live a happy existence as soon as I go through this two- or three-year course that has been prescribed for me."
Cross-examined by Mr John Rogers SC, for the board, she said Dr Moran was a friend of her father "but not a friend to me". Her mother had asked Dr Moran for help and he had told her to go home, sort her children out and discipline them.
Mr Rogers said Dr Moran gave a detailed account of the family at a case conference in 1979 in which he described McColgan as spoiled and arrogant, her mother as gentle and co-operative and reported that he discussed his concerns about the children with McColgan and warned him of the consequences of his behaviour.
She accepted Gerry had withdrawn all allegations of sexual abuse but said their father had terrorised him into doing so.
Mr Rogers suggested that her position had been considered by responsible people including doctors and social workers in August 1979 but the law at the time precluded her being taken into care without evidence about how she got her broken nose. Ms McColgan said the evidence was there but no one took time to talk to her. She accepted no one in 1979 knew she had been sexually abused.
The hearing continues today before Mr Justice Johnson.