Woman rejects SF abuse account
A woman who said she was raped by a leading republican has rejected two Sinn Fein members’ accounts of how they tried to help her.
The woman, Ms Cahill, has said she was raped by an IRA man in 1997.
On Tuesday, Padraic Wilson and Seamus Finucane, who are also former IRA men, issued statements detailing how they tried to deal with the case.
But Ms Cahill has described their involvement as “forced” and “mishandled”.
At the time of her alleged abuse, when she was aged 16, Ms Cahill, a great-niece of veteran republican Joe Cahill, was working for the West Belfast Festival radio station.
She was staying with her alleged attacker and his wife while her parents were on holiday.
Three years after the alleged rape, Ms Cahill met Mr Wilson and Mr Finucane, who were IRA members at the time.
In his statement on Tuesday, Mr Wilson said he spoke to Ms Cahill and another member of her family. He said he stressed throughout “that the only way that the situation could be dealt with was by bringing it directly to the social services.”
He added that Ms Cahill had not wanted to take that path.
However that has been rejected by Ms Cahill.
In his statement on Tuesday, Seamus Finucane said that Ms Cahill did not wish to involve the RUC in the investigation.
She has also rejected that account as “untrue”.
