McGinley is today starting a 21-year rape sentence on his 36th birthday
WHEN SIMON McGinley was whisked into a prison van following his rape sentencing yesterday, his family ran from the court to try to snatch a few words with him.
When their way was blocked by gardaí and prison officers, McGinley’s wife, Rosaleen, and mother, Mary, were vocal in their protest.
“You wouldn’t even give him two minutes to talk to his children,” Mary McGinley told one officer while pointing to the children.
Aged between about four and 12 years, they had been brought to court yesterday to hear the details of their father’s rape of an 86-year-old woman, and 11 years ago, of a 13-year-old girl.
The children, at least one of whom was still in nappies, also witnessed their father being handcuffed and chained to a prison officer before being locked into the prison van destined for the Arbour Hill sex offenders’ jail.
When McGinley was being taken from the court after the details of his horrific crimes were outlined, he leaned towards the family of his elderly victim, saying: “Just remember, I never done it.”
His mother shouted to the victim’s adult children that they should have “put your mother in a home”. She shouted at her son as he was being led handcuffed through the court: “You didn’t murder anyone; you shouldn’t have got 21 years.”
Later, on the pavement outside the court, Mary McGinley burst into a bizarre rendition of If Tomorrow Never Comes.
She told the assembled media her son was innocent. “Don’t be calling my son a beast, he’s a human being. I carried him for nine months and I suffered like every other mother. You hear it, you and your papers?”
McGinley is today starting his 21-year rape sentence on his 36th birthday. With remission, he will serve 15 years and nine months.
He will not see his mother, wife or children as a free man until he is just short of his 52nd birthday.
At the same time that his family was protesting his innocence, the shattered family of McGinley’s 86-year-old victim slipped from the court.
Another young woman also discreetly left the court. She was aged just 13 years in 1997 when McGinley raped her. She became pregnant and while in care was granted court approval to have an abortion in the UK.
Her family challenged the move and the controversial legal battle became known as the “C case”.
Sgt Seamus Boyle, now of Carrick-on-Shannon Garda station, told McGinley’s sentencing hearing that he had investigated the girl’s rape in 1997.
He told the court that the girl had been babysitting the McGinleys’ three children in their caravan on a halting site in August 1997 while the couple were out socialising.
On their return home McGinley told his wife he would drop the girl home in his van.
Sgt Boyle said McGinley drove past the girl’s home and into a council depot where he punched her in the face. He then ripped the girl’s clothes off and began to rape her in the back of the van.
He said McGinley’s wife had followed the van and knocked on the door while the rape was taking place. McGinley jumped into the driver’s seat and drove off with the girl in the back. He drove around for a while before pulling in and getting out to put on his clothes. The girl tried to make her escape but he caught her and hit her again.
McGinley drove back to the girl’s home and threw her out of the van while his wife and the girl’s mother looked on. The girl became pregnant as a result of the rape but the pregnancy was terminated and McGinley was identified as the father, using DNA from the foetus. He was convicted of the rape.
