Wheelchair paedophile serves sentence at home

A wheelchair-bound paedophile – jailed for abusing a 13-year-old girl – is serving his sentence in his own home on the Headford Road, because no Irish prison can accommodate him.

The cost of having prison guards station at the apartment each day is reported to be in the region of €2 million.

Sixty one year-old Martin Davoren, who is originally from Corcullen, Moycullen, but now living at the Caireal Mór estate, was sentence to five years at Galway Circuit Criminal Court last July for indecently assaulting the girl.

Davoren – who was paralysed from the waist down in a car accident at the age of 22 – was transported in a specially-adapted vehicle to Castlerea Prison following sentencing, but was sent home again because prison authorities could not meet his medical requirements.  He is now serving the sentence from his apartment

According to the Irish Daily Star, the cost to taxpayers will be around €2.2m – he is guarded by four prison officers each day, working in two 12-hour shifts. The figure excludes payment for a carer 24-hours per day.

The newspaper reported that the four prison guards are paid a total of €1,600 per day. Factoring in a 25% remission on the sentence, he will serve three years and eight months, equating to €2.2m.

Davoren pleaded guilty to twelve sample charges of indecently assaulting Sarah Clancy – who waived her right to anonymity – at various locations on dates between September 1, 1986 and July 31, 1988.

When she was ten years old she started to attend a horse riding school in Moycullen to learn to ride and shortly after that the accused befriended her.

The abuse started when Ms Clancy was 13. Davoren dropped something on the floor of his jeep and asked her to pick it up for him. He then pinned her down and kissed her.

The assaults became more serious and occurred on a daily basis after that. She remembered he got her drunk one evening by encouraging her to drink alcohol from a cup he had won at a show that day.  She got sick on the way back.

He told her he would leave her home, but instead took her to an isolated area near the Tonabrucky mast in Rahoon and sexually assaulted her.

The abuse intensified after that and on one occasion when Davoren could not have sex with the child, he sexually assaulted her with a riding whip.