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SISTERS SEXUALLY ABUSED during childhood by their two older brothers, Richard and Bernard Brennan, are calling for stricter sentencing guidelines for sexual abuse and for reform of paid leave available for trial witnesses.
Earlier this month, Richard Brennan, a former priest, was sentenced to eight years in jail for the rape and sexual assault of his sisters.
Their older brother Bernard has also been jailed for four-and-a-half years for sexual abuse.
Speaking with Oliver Callan on RTÉ Radio One, sisters Paula Fay and Catherine Wrightstone said said they are “deeply disappointed” with the leniency of the sentence their brother Richard received and the mitigating factors which led to the length of the sentence, which included ‘deep remorse’.
Richard Brennan (64), previously of Rathfarnham, now living in the United States, pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court this month to 24 counts against his three sisters, including 18 of indecent assault and six charges of rape.
He pleaded guilty to four sample charges of indecent assault and four rape charges against Paula Faye on dates between January 1978 and December 1981, when she was aged between 13 and 17 years old.
He also pleaded guilty to 13 sample incidences of indecent assault and two charges of rape against Catherine Wrightstone on dates between June 1980 and December 1984 while she was aged between nine and 14 years old.
His brother, Bernard Brennan (67), formerly of Rathfarnham but most recently residing in the United States, was jailed for four-and-a-half years after he admitted to sexual abuse of both Paula Faye and their third sister Yvonne Crist.
Bernard Brennan pleaded guilty to 11 counts of indecent assault in various locations within the State between 1972 and 1975.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio One, the sisters called for witnesses to be entitled to paid leave for the duration of a trial, rather than the current law which only allows it for the day witnesses are giving evidence.
They said witnesses should receive the same entitlements as jury members do, particularly in trials of this nature.
The three sisters involved in the case, Paula, Catherine and Yvonne, gave evidence during Richard’s trial.
Paula said: “When I sought leave from my job, I was informed all I was entitled to was to either take annual leave or unpaid leave. That there was nothing in law to protect me as a witness.”
Paula said that as the trial involved herself and her siblings, she wanted to attend all of it, rather than just the day she was giving evidence.
“I was completely committed to this process from the very beginning, and I feel that we need to be treated differently,” she said.
“I know that jury members are entitled to be paid through their employment when they’re on a jury, for the entire trial, and I feel that something needs to change that a witness is also doing their civic duty. I feel it is exactly the same.”
Catherine said she would like to see mandatory and binding sentencing guidelines introduced, that treat sexual abuse and rape as serious offences regardless of the time elapsed.
She also wants legislative change to introduce sibling sexual abuse as a separate crime, with mandatory sentences.
If these legislative changes take place, she said delayed disclosure of offences due to trauma and family pressure should not lead to more lenient sentencing.
In Richard’s trial, while considering mitigating factors, Mr Justice Keane looked at Brennan’s guilty plea, deep remorse, apologies, lack of previous conviction and co-operation with gardaí.
Catherine said mitigation based solely on family support and a lack of other convictions should not be allowed, and offenders should receive mandatory consecutive sentences for multiple victims.
“These predatory urges don’t just disappear, especially when there’s no intervention, and decades of denial,” she said.
She said the voices of survivors should be considered when policy is created, and judges should receive mandatory training for sexual abuse cases.
Catherine and Paula said they lived with “internalised shame” from the abuse they received at the hands of their brothers.
Bernard began abusing Paula in 1972 when he was 13 and she was seven. He encouraged Richard to abuse his sisters too, which he began doing in 1979.
Richard Brennan told his sisters they would be doing him a favour to have sex with him as he was going to become a priest and had sexual urges.
Paula was abused for over 10 years by her brothers.
She said Bernard had a lot of authority in the family home.
“It was like he was a parent to us. I was very fearful of him. He also could be very physically violent so you more or less did whatever you were asked,” she said.
She said the abuse often occurred when her parents were out, but the majority occured at night when everybody was asleep.
At times, she said she was abused by both Richard and Bernard at the same time.
Bernard moved out when Paula was 12, but Richard continued abusing her.
She said she often told Richard that the abuse was wrong and he needed help, but he reassured her that it was okay due to his involvement in the seminary.
She said her brothers threatened her, which made her fearful to speak up.
“From early on, the threat was that if I spoke up the family would break up, my mother would end up in the lunatic asylum, my father would probably drink himself to death and me and my siblings would be split up” she said.
Paula said her mother suffered with mental health issues and her father was a functioning alcoholic, so this threat seemed like a real possibility.
Catherine was abused from the age of nine.
“I thought it was me, I thought I was the only one, I thought there was something fundamentally wrong with me,” she said.
Speaking on being raped by her brother, Catherine said: “It’s like a homicide, where sex is used as the weapon. A little part of you dies, it is just a devastating violation.”
Catherine and Paula said that the “hold” their parents had on them made them feel they could not report the abuse to gardaí.
Paula said that while her mother was on her deathbed, she called Richard and told him “your sisters forgive you”, which was untrue.
Catherine did alert other people when she learned Richard was the director of a youth programme at a church in the US. She wrote to the ministers to inform him of Richard’s past.
In 2015, following their parents death, the sisters made the decision to report their brothers.
The impetus came when their brother Eamon took his own life in 2015. Catherine said her brother was also abused at the hands of their brothers.
Catherine said the sample charges Richard pled guilty to were only a small number of those that actually occurred.
“The acts were so frequent when he was home from the seminary that I could not provide exact numbers to the Gardaí,” she said.
The sisters bravely chose to waive their anonymity in order to highlight the issue of sibling sexual abuse.
The sisters chose to waive their anonymity to highlight the issue of sibling sexual abuse and are encouraging other survivors to avail of counselling services that are available.
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