WOMAN CONVICTED OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE IN KERRY
A 69-year-old woman convicted of sexually abusing two young boys called her sister from prison and said “I’m going downhill” one week before she died, an investigation has found.Josephine McMahon was jailed for two-and-a-half years in 2023 for the “heinous” abuse of two children in Kerry during the 1990s, one of whom she sexually assaulted with a wooden spoon.
She pleaded guilty before the Central Criminal Court to two sample counts of sexual assault at an address in Kerry on dates between 1992 and 1996.
The boys were aged between four and 12 at the time of the abuse.
Her cellmate told the OIP that McMahon spoke to her sister by phone from prison on Christmas Eve, when she told her “I’m going downhill.” She expressed gratitude to her siblings for all they had done for her.
Shortly after the phone call, the 69-year-old was transferred to the Mater Hospital due to abnormal blood test results.
She was subsequently admitted and underwent emergency surgery.
She spent some time in the intensive care unit (ICU) and was visited by a governor from the prison while she was undergoing dialysis and receiving sedation.
She remained in ICU until New Year’s Eve, when she was transferred to the cardiology ward.
McMahon was due to be fitted with a pacemaker on January 7, 2025.
However, one of the prison escorts found her unresponsive at 1:55pm on New Year’s Day and alerted hospital staff, who made efforts to resuscitate her.
These efforts were unsuccessful, and the woman was pronounced dead at 2:40pm.
McMahon was not named in the report.
Her fellow inmates told the OIP that prison staff had been “excellent” to McMahon, and that she had received a high quality of care every day at the Dóchas Centre.
The OIP commended prison authorities for the “attentive medical care” provided.
One of the boys laughed when she fell, and she took him into a bathroom, where she inserted the handle of a wooden spoon in his anus, telling him, “You won’t laugh at me again.” She ran the boy a bath afterwards because he was bleeding, and repeatedly told him that it was his own fault.
The court also heard that McMahon would undress around the boy and ask him if he wanted to touch her.
On the second occasion of sexual assault, she urinated in his bath and again attacked him with a wooden spoon.
The other complainant was abused by McMahon when he was aged between eight and 12.
He said she touched him inappropriately and exposed herself to him in the toilet.
In his victim impact statement, he said the woman had robbed him of his childhood and sense of safety.
