A convicted IRA bomber who sexually abused two children as a teenager has been released from court after being handed a parole order.
Arcy Gearoid McMenamin, 47, of Glen Road, Drumquin, who was released under the Good Friday Agreement, faced court for the first time in 2020, a week after his deportation from the US.
In a previous bail application, a police officer cited McMenamin’s violent and explosives convictions, noting, “The victims are appalled.”
Dungannon Crown Court has heard victim 1 was seven when McMenamin said he had “a little friend who would like to play”.
He placed the child’s hand on his exposed privates and explained that this was her secret and if she told anyone, “bad men would take her mom and dad”.
The child was targeted a second time when McMenamin “reminded her of her secret.”
She fled, but McMenamin followed, placing his hand on her leggings and performing a sexual act “that lifted her off the ground by her sheer force.”
He put his hand over the child’s mouth and warned her that if she told her she would be taken away.
Victim 2 was eight years old when she was playing hide and seek with friends and found herself alone in a shed with McMenamin, where he made her perform oral sex on him.
Judge Brian Sherrard told McMenamin: “If committed today, one of those offenses would be rape, which would carry the potential for life imprisonment. I am thinking of the extreme need for protection of the victims and the very large age differences. You have breached their security. You feel the effects to this day.”
“Both continue to suffer from intrusive thoughts. All of this stays at your door.”
He added: “This court heard her lived experiences of childhood sexual abuse and its appalling, enduring consequences.
These appear to have been opportunistic crimes, but their repetition reveals a degree of planning. Making threats contributes significantly to criminal liability. For a child who is threatened with the loss of their family, it is extraordinarily frightening and damaging.”
McMenamin received a three-year probationary order and will be on the sex offender registry for five years.
