A former mayor and solicitor has been jailed for five years for sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl during a sleepover at his house almost 20 years ago.
Former Fermoy Town Council Chairman, John Hussey (67) of Corrin View, Fermoy pleaded guilty to a single count of sexually assaulting Hannah Beresford at his home in Fermoy between November 1st and November 2nd, 2003 contrary to Section 2 of the Criminal Law (Rape Amendment) Act 1990. Hussey was a Fianna Fáil member of Fermoy Town Council and a solicitor with a busy practice in the North Cork town.
Delivering her Victim Impact Statement in court on Tuesday, Ms Beresford outlined the effect the sexual assault has had on her over the last 20 years including how strange she found it to hear it described as “historical” given it remains with her every day of her life.
“It is difficult to capture in its entirely the impact that that this sexual assault has had on my life as this impact has not been static. I have lived more of my life in the aftermath of this assault than I lived before it and it has impacted me in different ways at different times, she said.
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“There have been periods when this impact has been a whisper in the background of my existence, others when it has been an all-consuming roar,” said Ms Beresford as she recalled the night that Hussey sexual assaulted her.
“During the assault itself, my initial reaction was one of confusion, swiftly followed by fear – I was eight years old and had never been treated with unkindness or cruelty. I did not understand what was happening, why my friend’s father was hurting me in the dark.
“I had never experienced a situation where an adult in charge of me did not have my best interests at heart and I couldn’t comprehend that a grown-up would deliberately hurt me for their own gratification.
“Some part of me hoped that that there was an explanation for what was happening, that this was part of some unusual bedtime routine and that I didn’t need to be afraid but the larger part of me knew that what was happening to me was fundamentally wrong.”
Ms Beresford spoke of how sexual assault is surrounded by a heavy silence and how she felt shame over what had happened to her even though she knew that she had nothing to be ashamed of and that in turn led to great anger.
“I was hugely angry that this man, John Hussey had felt a right to my body, had inflicted this physical and emotional pain upon me and that this was compounded by a sense of guilt over something from which I was not responsible – I was furious he did not seem to carry any of the shame or guilt I felt.”
She told how she found the prospect of going through the justice process daunting but when she moved to Dublin and went to university, she found it easier to speak about what happened to her but away from her family and their support, she started to become depressed.
She paid tribute to gardaí as she recalled that the weight lifted from her from the minute that she walked into Fermoy Garda station in 2020, and she thanked everyone who had supported her over the past two and a half years since then and the preceding 17 and a half years before it.
“I have an extraordinarily rich life with many wonderful people, and I now understand myself in such a way that I can live it fully. This assault will always be a fact of my life, but I am looking forward to no longer carrying this particularly burden of secrecy and pain.”
