A Dublin woman has described how her anger at lies told by the man who abused her as a young teenager drove her on to pursue a prosecution against him.
Linda Travers, who is now 45, said she wanted 68-year-old Frank Roche to answer for what he had done to her when she was between 12 and 14 years old.
Roche from Warrenstown Green, Blanchardstown Heath in Dublin, was sentenced last November in the Central Criminal Court to six years and nine months in jail, with the final nine months suspended, after pleading guilty to sexually abusing Ms Travers while she was babysitting his young son.
She spoke to our Legal Affairs Correspondent, Órla O'Donnell.
Linda Travers has recently moved to a rural part of Kildare, with her partner and their young children.
Having lived in Dublin all her life, she says she is just starting to get used to the peace, as she potters around her large garden.
Peace has eluded Linda for a long time.
As a young teenager, she was sexually abused for two years by a man whose son she occasionally minded.
The man was someone she confided in and saw as a friend.
Now, she realises he was grooming her.
The abuse started when she was 12 years old and ended when she was 14.
Almost three years ago she finally contacted gardaí.
Last November, 68-year-old Frank Roche pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting her in his home in Cabra on dates between September 1992 and September 1994.
At 14, Linda got a job elsewhere, which meant that she was no longer available to babysit for Roche and the abuse stopped.
However, its effects have lingered for much longer.
Linda says she has suffered from panic attacks, anxiety and bad physical and mental health for most of her life.
Her mental health deteriorated significantly during the Covid pandemic.
While Roche was abusing her, he would prevent her from leaving his home.
Linda says the Covid restrictions on travel triggered something in her.
She noticed herself becoming very unwell, mentally. She told her partner and then went to a doctor, to whom, she says, she told "everything".
Linda was referred to counselling but eventually the counsellor told her she needed more specialised help and suggested she contact One in Four, the charity supporting adult survivors of child sexual abuse.
This was not an easy thing to do, she says, and it took her another six months before she eventually made the call.
This was because she knew revealing the truth would upset her family and adds that Roche had a family too.
"He could have been honest from the start, and it would have been easier."
In June 2022, Linda made contact with the charity and was told that the next step would be to report the abuse to gardaí.
She says making her statement was "terrible".
Although she had told people close to her about her abuse, she had kept the details to herself for 30 years.
But during the investigation process "you have to relive everything," she says, and "recount in graphic detail, everything that the person has done to you".
When Roche was first interviewed by gardaí, he told them he believed Linda was older and that she was consenting to what he did.
This was not the first lie he told, Linda says.
The lies "angered and infuriated" her and had the effect of spurring her on to see the prosecution through and to make her own efforts to disprove what he said.
Linda says she was initially wary when a male garda - Detective Garda Tom Hughes - was assigned to her case, but she quickly realised they were on the same page when it came to getting the work done to get the case to court as soon as possible.
Detective Hughes describes her as a "determined" woman.
He says it was like having an assistant or "buckshee" detective working on the case.
When gardaí ran up against problems getting documents because of data protection regulations for example, he says, Linda would step in and demand access to her own files.
Linda says she was "on a mission".
At one stage, Roche claimed she was 17 years old and not 14 when he knew her.
In support of this, he said he had been teaching her to drive.
Linda says she went to the motor tax office and also got old bank statements.
She handed all the documents to the gardaí to show that she could not have been learning to drive at the time claimed by Roche.
In fact, she had not got her first licence or first car until she was almost 22 years old.
"The more he lied, the more it angered and annoyed me," she says.
She says she was not going to let him make her out to be a liar.
"He could have been honest from the start," she says, "and it would have been easier."
"It's those who abuse you who should be ashamed."
A trial date for November last year was set, but before the trial Roche pleaded guilty to six charges.
In her victim impact statement, Linda told Roche he had lived his life, "probably not even giving me a second thought," whereas he was part of her life from the moment he first abused her.
Linda says she is happy with the sentence of six years and nine months with the final nine months suspended imposed by Ms Justice Karen O’Connor.
The judge said the circumstances of the case were extraordinary and that the offending started from a high level of gravity and then escalated.
Judge O’Connor noted that the offences had a maximum penalty of five years at the time of the offending - the current penalty for sexually assaulting a child is 14 years.
The judge made some sentences consecutive to take account of the "massive breach of trust", the age disparity, the duration of the abuse and the significant impact on the victim.
Linda says it was never about "someone doing time".
At first, she says, she just wanted the gardaí to knock on Roche’s door and let him know she had not forgotten what he had done.
As time went on though, she wanted him to come to court and answer for his actions.
She classes herself as lucky because it took only two years for her case to be finalised from the time she made her first complaint to gardaí.
When Linda walked into the Criminal Courts of Justice, she says she often felt like she was the criminal.
She describes it as a "scary" and "daunting" place for those who have endured sexual assaults.
Waiving her anonymity and going public afterwards was vitally important for her, she says.
"The more people stand up," she says, "the more people will know they should not be ashamed. It’s those who abuse you who should be ashamed."
Linda says she now wants to focus on healing herself and on having a good life with her partner and her children.
She says she just wants to enjoy life "without the burden of feeling like I’m carrying this horrible secret".
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