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Abuse survivor suing jailed paedophile teacher Cian Cooney

In a previous statement, the young woman, who is now 23, said she went through five years of hell from the age of 13 and suffered from anger, insecurity, loneliness and sadness.

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The victim of a paedophile teacher who engaged in multiple acts of defilement and sexual exploitation against her when she was 13 has taken civil legal proceedings against him.

The case against Cian Cooney (38) was first filed in the High Court in July 2020, Independent.iehas learned.

In a previous statement, the young woman, who is now 23, said she went through five years of hell from the age of 13 and suffered from anger, insecurity, loneliness and sadness.

However, when she reported the abuse she had suffered as a teenager, she felt she “was now looking at my 13-year-old self as someone I should stand up for and protect”.

“I almost had a motherly instinct for the little girl that went through all of that pain,” she said.

“I also imagined all of the kids that he is working with or meets in life, even if he doesn’t physically harm them, the thought of him looking at or thinking about any of them the wrong way made me feel sick.

“I knew I had to stand up for my 13-year-old self, and all the other kids that could possibly ever cross his way.”

The woman said she still suffered from insecurities and is receiving counselling.

“I feel like the most precious and innocent years of my life were taken away from me,” her statement read.

The civil case against Cooney has not yet progressed through the courts and the outcome of the litigation is unknown.

When contacted by Independent.ie, the Co Longford legal firm representing the abuse survivor, who is now aged 23, said they would not comment on the High Court case.

Longford Circuit Court previously heard that Cooney befriended his victim by sending her a friend request via a bogus Facebook page in August 2013.

They subsequently met in a car park in Longford Town and the man told the girl he was 18 when he was in fact 28.

The court heard Cooney, from Ballymahon, Co Longford, would pick the girl up in his car and go to her home, and they had sex on a number of occasions.

The meetings stopped in December of that year after a Facebook message from Cooney, before he contacted her again in 2015.

Garda investigations began in 2016 after the girl was told that Cooney couldn’t go on a weekend away with her due to a sports injury.

The girl told her parents and they became aware that the son of a close acquaintance had also suffered a similar injury and a Facebook search revealed his identity.

Cooney is expected to remain in jail until November next year after he was sentenced in February 2021.

Last week his father Michael Cooney (67) received a two-and-a-half-year suspended jail sentence and was ordered to pay €10,000 to charity, for attempting to pervert the court of justice in relation to his son’s case.

The well-known hotelier and GAA figure had admitted repeatedly contacting the victim’s father in an effort to have his daughter’s criminal complaint dropped, offering a sum of €50,000 if she did so.

In November 2021, Cian Cooney was struck off the teaching register for 30 years having previously worked as a PE and geography teacher at a south Dublin secondary school.

At a fitness-to-teach inquiry, a disciplinary committee panel concluded the very serious nature of Cooney’s actions were at the “very highest end of the spectrum of wrongdoing”.