By Saoirse McGarrigle - The Journal - 19/08/2024 - [IRELAND] Gerard Murray was just four years old when he says he was sexually abused by former surgeon Michael Shine.
Ten years later, he was sexually assaulted again, this time by a Christian Brother at a local school.
By his late teens, Gerard attempted to take his own life before struggling with alcoholism, substance abuse and homelessness in early adulthood.
Now aged 53, he has been sober for more than 25 years and insists that a public inquiry is “the only way I can ever get justice”.
“I don’t think I can ever come to terms with what’s happened,” Gerard, who still lives in Drogheda, tells The Journal, as part of in-depth interviews by a group campaigning for a public inquiry. It is the first time he has spoken publicly, waiving anonymity.
“To this day, I don’t have peace. I don’t have a sense of ease, a sense of justice. Until I get that, I don’t think I’ll ever stop.”
He describes the sexual assault he allegedly suffered at Shine’s hands as “really, really painful”, recalling how the warped medic whispered from behind him during the attack: “It won’t be long.”
When asked how he felt about being part of a public campaign for a Commission of Investigation, he said: “Waiving my anonymity and going forward…when I am determined to do something, I will do it.
“To me an open, public Commission of Investigation is the only way I can ever get justice. There are too many secrets being buried, blocked and hidden.
“People have questions to answer. They can’t hide forever.
“My abuse by Michael Shine is with me every single day, it affects who I am to this day. It’s made me who I am to this day.
“He should never, ever have been released from prison. He should have spent the rest of his life in prison.”
Gerard claims he was sexually assaulted by Shine when he attended his private surgery on Peter Street, Drogheda, in relation to a hernia issue. He says that while he was only four years of age, he knew at the time that something was wrong and this was not part of a standard medical examination.
He insists that Shine’s sex crimes were widely known and there had been a cover-up by the Catholic Church and State.
“Everybody knew. Growing up, I played football and they used to say ‘don’t hurt your leg, or you’ll be going up to Shine’. It was a well known, open secret.”
Giving a raw account of how being sexually abused impacted him, he said: “Growing up, I felt useless. I tried to mix with other kids, but I never did feel as if I was mixing, because I knew that there was something wrong inside of me. I felt useless. I felt like a piece of shit.
“I felt depressed from a young age and then I got into alcohol. Then I felt suicidal. I tried suicide when I was 18. I ended up in a psychiatric hospital in a locked ward with what I deemed grown men, because I still felt like a child.
“When I made it out, I got into drink and drugs for a few years. I drank to block out my life. I hated my life. I hated myself. I felt useless. I felt no hope. I just couldn’t function as a normal person in society. When I drank, I drank to black out, to comatose.”
In his mid-20s, he realised that he needed to stop abusing alcohol and drugs. He met a man through a support network who offered him a bed for the night because he was still homeless. That single act of kindness, Gerard said, was the catalyst for change.
“He was really kind to me. I was determined then to get off drink and drugs and I haven’t taken a drink or drug since.”
But while he has overcome substance abuse, he still feels that he has “no voice” and that the Irish state “has to be shamed into being proactive”.
He needs to campaign for a public inquiry, he says, adding: “I can’t not do something. I can’t live, I can’t look my son in the eye, and not do anything… I can’t sit by and do nothing. I have to push (for an inquiry).”
This year marks 60 years since the first alleged sexual assault by the disgraced doctor.
Hundreds of men claim that they were subsequently abused by Shine, now 93, over decades, but in 2024, he is a free man after serving just three years in prison.
Today, a leading human rights law firm has announced that it is acting for the victims and calling for a public inquiry to probe claims that health and religious authorities failed to stop the abuse.
“The victims are seeking a Commission of Investigation into, not just the actions of Michael Shine, but the failings of the public authorities and how that was allowed to go on, for such a period of time as it was,” Diarmuid Brecknell from Phoenix Law said.
Shine’s name has long been associated with legal battles about the many allegations against him. He was first accused of abuse by a whistleblower in 1995 and charged with indecent assault in 1996. His legal tactics delayed any trial relating to those charges from starting until 2003. He was then acquitted.
Two more trials, in 2017 and 2019, saw him found guilty of assaults against nine boys. More charges led to another protracted legal saga, culminating in the Court of Appeal ruling that “cumulative factors” – including Shine’s age and health, and a ‘misstep’ by the Director of Public Prosecutions – meant the case was in a “wholly exceptional category where it would be unjust to put the appellant on trial”.
Even after being convicted of sexual offences in 2017 and 2019, there was more legal plays used by Shine. He was granted bail in 2017 pending an appeal of that initial conviction. His legal team argued for a delay to the start of his next trial which was granted to allow for a fade factor after publicity from the first trial. Instead of starting in June 2018, the trial was pushed back to January 2019.
In February 2020, he was found guilty of assaulting seven boys who were in his care between 1971 and 1992. He ran out of legal road and was taken to Midlands Prison to start his four-year sentence.
His appeal against his initial conviction and 20-month sentence was then dismissed on 3 July 2019. He withdrew a separate appeal against his 2019 sentence in 2021.
He served three years’ in Midlands Prison and was released in 2022. He now resides in Dublin 4. If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article and were abused in state run medical and health facilities, you can contact Dignity4Patients, whose helpline is open Monday to Thursday 10am to 4pm.