Jailed paedophile Pat Salmon has died, four months into a three year sentence for repeatedly sexually assaulting a five year-old girl in the mid-90s.
The 89-year-old “self-proclaimed pillar of society” died last Monday in the Mater Hospital, Dublin. He had been suffering from ill-health and is believed to have fallen while hospitalised.
Salmon, of Rockfield, Knock, Claremorris, Co Mayo, pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to five counts of sexual assault against the child at his home on dates in 1995.
He was sentenced last November to three years, with the judge noting she was bound by laws governing maximum penalties at the time of Salmon’s offending.
The victim wished for him to be named in the reporting of this case, but did not want her name published.
Speaking to the Sunday Independent this weekend, she said: “I do still feel that I got justice. He deserved every day that he served in prison over those four months.
“He died as a prisoner and would have suffered to have no loved ones to hold his hand in his dying days. His reputation had also been destroyed.
“My first feeling when I heard was shock, but now I feel a sense of closure. I don’t have to worry about ever having to see him again, which would have been the case if he served his entire sentence and was then released.
"I’ve always been half-afraid of coming face-to-face with him again. Now I’ll never have to see him again.
“It was the best four months of my life, to have him behind bars. He admitted what he did to me and I was believed, by the gardaí, the DPP and my community.
“I can hold my head up high now. I’m getting on with my life and I’ve a lot of look forward to. If I had left it any longer to go forward to gardaí, I would not have got justice. I’m so very glad I did.
“I got to hear him say he was guilty in court, and he died a convicted child abuser with the people in his community knowing that is what he was.”
Salmon was a former brother with the St John of God religious order. He also worked as a nurse and was previously the nursing director at the Brothers of Charity Services in Renmore, Galway.
Later, he was a director of residential care at Western Care in Mayo, and chair of the board of management at Knock National School.
In garda interviews, Salmon made partial admissions to the sexual abuse of the child, but sought to deny the more serious facts.
Last year, the court heard he later accepted the full extent of the abuse.
When first questioned under caution, Salmon said his abuse of the child was not in keeping with his character. He told gardaí: “As a religious man, I would say the Devil took over.”
It was an attempt to try to “explain away” his crimes, his victim said.
“He was 59. I was five years old. This had nothing to do with the Devil or God. It was all him,” she said.
“By bringing it back to God, he was trying to use religion as an excuse. He has never apologised. He is not one bit remorseful. He pleaded guilty so that he could receive a lesser sentence. I’ve no doubt that was his reasoning.”
In 1995, Salmon knew the little girl’s family well and was held in a “position of trust” by them.
“I used to help him in his garden,” the young woman said. “I’d then go back into his house and it happened there, the abuse, in the bathroom.
“He preyed on me. It was predatory.”