The Public Prosecution Service (PPS) has said it is “disappointed” a sexual abuse victim feels let down by its service.
A sexual abuse victim of an IRA bomber criticised its handling of her case.
Speaking exclusively to BBC News NI, she said she believes it took a complaint she made to the PPS to secure action on the case.
The woman, who has asked to remain anonymous, was six years old when Darcy McMenamin sexually abused her.
He was later imprisoned for an attack on Fintona police station in 1993.
In 1998 she was a teenager when she watched him walk out of prison, released as part of the Good Friday Agreement.
It would be another 20 years before she went to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and made a statement in 2018.
In the meantime, McMenamin had moved to the United States.
“It had troubled me more and more as time went on,” she said.
“I wanted it to be left with the people who could do something about it, if they decided to.”
Separately in Boston, McMenamin was detained on immigration offences and deported.
“There is no safe haven in the US for foreign nationals convicted of terrorist activities,” said a 2020 US Immigrations and Customs statement about his deportation.
Bail condition changes
Back in Northern Ireland, on the back of two sexual abuse complainants, he was charged in 2020 with historic child sex offences.
That was, however, when this victim grew more concerned about the PPS’s handling of the case.
“At the start, I was learning that court appearances had happened only after they’d occurred, there was no communication from the PPS,” she said.
“When I wasn’t informed about changes in bail conditions I started to lose faith, for me that was one of the most important things. I had huge concerns about that.”
Over several months, as she saw it, things got worse.
“It wasn’t just a lack of communication, sometimes I was told things that were not accurate,” she said.
“Once I lost trust in the process, I lost all faith. I felt so powerless about it all.”
She was on the brink of withdrawing from the case when she made a complaint to the PPS in the summer of 2022.
“I think the case reached a point where I felt certain there was going to be no conviction at the end of it and I wasn’t going to put myself through it any longer,” she said.
“I was at the point of withdrawing if nothing changed.”
‘My conscience is clear’
It was her complaint to the PPS that she said changed everything.
“I would still be caught up in that process now had that complaint not been submitted. I had contact from the PPS within a day.” the woman said.
“I think there was a consultation the week after that, and within four or five appearances in court, they had secured a guilty plea.
“I don’t believe we would have reached that outcome at all. Had it not been for the complaints.”
In November, McMenamin pleaded guilty to the historic sexual abuse of two children in the 1990s.
He was given a three-year probation order and will remain on the sex offenders register for five years.
“For me, it’s about my conscience being clear,” the victim said.
Yet months on she remains disappointed with the PPS.
“It’s about the process. It’s about the attitudes that exists within the system and the failures of the PPS,” she said.
“I find it hard to to trust that there has been any real change and the system to prevent these cases from ending up with poorer outcomes for victims.”
PPS assistant director Ciaran McQuillan accepted that some initial communication could have been better handled.
“Once her concerns were brought to our attention, the PPS did our best to engage with and support this victim,” he said.
“It is widely recognised that sexual offence cases in general present complexities for the entire criminal justice system, and these cases can take time to progress through the system.
“This is in a context where we are experiencing the impact of pressures arising from the pandemic and unprecedented levels of sexual offences cases before the crown court.”
