Portlaoise mum's appeal after child rapist is released
Child rapist Joseph 'Nipper' Hogan was released from the Midlands Prison on 6 March
A PORTLAOISE mother who was raped by her uncle when she was only seven is appealing to people to support a peaceful protest this Thursday, one week after he was released from jail.
Sonya Stokes (47) is also seeking signatures for an online petition, calling for stricter release conditions for repeat child sex offenders.
Sonya stood vigil outside the Midlands Prison in Portlaoise last Thursday, when notorious paedophile Joseph Hogan was released after serving ten years of a 15-year sentence.
Hogan first raped Sonya on top of a washing machine in his Limerick home when she was only seven years old. Over the following four years, he raped and sexually assaulted her in his house and in an outdoor shed.
Sonya waited outside the Midlands Prison for over five hours from 5.30am on Thursday, hoping to confront the man who destroyed her childhood. Instead, the 71-year-old was whisked away in a taxi that had been sent to the rear of the prison, leaving her helpless and alone on the street.
Speaking to the , Sonya said: “I felt so angry. If that was any ordinary criminal they would have just opened the gates and let him out. Why was this dangerous child predator hidden from view, after hurting so many children?”
She explained: “I didn’t want to make a scene. I just wanted to confront him and ask if he realised what he had done. I wanted to let him know that I’m not afraid of him. Instead, they hid him away and he just drove past me in the back of a taxi. I wanted to scream.”
A mother-of-five whose youngest child is eight, Sonya said: “I can’t believe they protected him and I’m disgusted with the justice system and the child protection system.”
Sonya is urgently seeking a series of changes in the law, with stricter release conditions for repeat child sex offenders. These conditions would include the mandatory tagging of convicted offenders following their release, so that their whereabouts is known at all times.
Together with other victims of child rape and abuse, Sonya will take part in a peaceful protest at 5.30am this Thursday outside City Hall in Limerick. A native of Limerick city, Hogan stayed in a homeless shelter on the night of his release and is understood to have moved to an accommodation centre in a former Limerick hotel the following day.
Hogan is now under Probation Service supervision and is on the sex offenders’ register, which gives him 24 hours to notify gardaí of his whereabouts. The protest in Limerick will call for much stricter regulation of sex offenders, particularly in relation to their accommodation.
The protest group has printed posters that include the slogan ‘We want them Tagged’ and a large image of Joseph Hogan with the title ‘High Sex Offender’.
Originally from Limerick but living in Portlaoise for many years, Sonya waived her anonymity in 2015 when her uncle was given a 15-year sentence for repeatedly raping and indecently assaulting her as a child between 1984 and 1988, when she was aged seven to 11.
He had already been jailed in the 1970s for assaulting other young girls, in both the UK and Ireland. After abusing Sonya, he went on to molest other children and was convicted in 1995 and 1998 of other indecent assaults.
He received a 22-month sentence in March 2013 for breaches of orders under the Sex Offenders Act, by living in houses with children in 2007 and 2009 despite his horrific record.
Sonya says that Hogan’s record proves he is a threat to children and the community and he should not be permitted to live in any form of accommodation where he could have access to children.
Sonya said: “I am going public now again to protect other children. They protected him but what about protecting victims? Social services should have protected me as a child but they didn’t. He went on to abuse other children after me. I’m speaking out now because I have to be their voice.
“He is free again now and we have to make sure that he is not given a chance to destroy any other children. He and people like him should be put on Spike Island, where they can be monitored. We can’t give them freedom at the expense of vulnerable children.”
Sonya is also encouraging other child abuse victims to come forward, as she says: “It is breaking my soul that a lot of victims are hiding their pain. I don’t want to have to fight and fight but I will, to give them a voice.”
The petition titled ‘Enforce stricter prison & release conditions for repeat sexual offenders’ is available on change.org.
