Paedophile abused girl in her school uniform

A paedophile, with a fetish for school girls in uniform, used threats of violence and blackmail to sexually abuse one such schoolgirl over a two-year period.

Agricultural contractor, Alan Feehily (27), from Milebush, Castlebar, Co Mayo, was described as ‘pure evil’ by his victim, who said he had used her ‘like a puppet’ to perform degrading sexual acts.

Feehily pleaded guilty before Galway Circuit Criminal Court last November to four sample charges of defilement of a child aged under 15 years of age at various locations in Co. Galway on dates between January 1, 2013 and October 12, 2014, while the facts in another nine similar charges were admitted.

Detective Adrian Fehily told the sentence hearing the girl was aged between 14 and 17 and the accused was aged between 22 and 24 at the time the offences occurred.

He said Feehily became acquainted with the girl when she was 14 through another person and disapproved when he heard she had a 15-year-old boyfriend.

He threatened to tell her parents about the boy if she didn’t give him a kiss. The girl refused but he kept threatening her. She finally relented and kissed him.

The threats became more aggressive after that and Feehily blackmailed her by threatening to tell her parents she had kissed him.

He began bringing her to school in his car and would wait after school to bring her home.

He drove her to various locations and used threats of violence to get her to perform sexual acts on him in his car against her will while she was wearing her school uniform.

Detective Fehily said the seriousness of the sexual assaults progressed until one day, Feehily demanded the girl have full sexual intercourse with him after he had collected her from school.

He said Feehily created rules which the victim had to obey. She would have to ring him daily to let him know where she was and what she was doing and would have to reply to his persistent text messages within ten minutes.

He demanded she take pictures of herself naked and video herself performing sexual acts before forwarding the content to his phone. He used these images to blackmail her further.

The abuse ended when the girl attended a school friend’s 18th birthday party where there was no phone coverage. Feehily picked her up from the party and was aggressive towards her because she hadn’t phoned him or answered his texts. She confided in the friend and soon after the Gardaí were contacted.

See full court coverage in this week’s Connacht Tribune.