Brave victim speaks out as evil monster jailed for abuse that tore her family apart

Alison McCaghey, 51, who waived her anonymity so her abuser Joseph Johnson can be named publicly, has now spoken out to ‘encourage and help other victims of abuse to come forward and know they have a voice to

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This is the evil monster who has been jailed for three years for robbing a woman of her innocent childhood by indecently assaulting her over a prolonged period – when she was just seven years of age.

Brave Alison McCaghey, 51, who waived her anonymity so her abuser Joseph Johnson can be named publicly, has now spoken out to “encourage and help other victims of abuse to come forward and know they have a voice too.”

Evil monster Johnson, 70, of Mullaghanee, Castleblayney, Co Monaghan was sentenced to four years with the final year suspended at Monaghan Circuit Court on Friday for eight counts of indecently assaulting Alison over a four and a half period in the early 1980s.

Alison was just seven years of age and the sexual abuse continued until she was 11. Initially, sicko Johnson pleaded not guilty when he was arraigned on January 12 and a jury was sworn in for his trial. However, the following day, he had a ‘change of heart’ according to his defence counsel James McGowan, SC and pleaded guilty to eight charges of indecently assaulting Alison.

The horror abuse on Alison started in the early 1980s when she was an innocent seven year old. Johnson, who is her mother’s second cousin and 20 years older than Alison, lived close by when Alison and her family moved from Dundalk to Castleblayney where they built a house.

Johnson moved into Alison’s family home where he started an intimate relationship with her mother. Then the weekly horror sexual abuse on Alison started.

She recalled a Saturday morning when she was seven and Johnson, who was naked in his bed, pulled her into the bed and put his hands into her pants and put his fingers in her vagina. He also asked her to touch his penis, the court heard.

The abuse continued most Saturday mornings and he made her masturbate him, the court heard. Alison told her mother when she was 11 what Johnson was doing to her. Her mother had a row with Johnson, who left the house for several days, but then returned “as if nothing happened,” the court heard and the abuse continued but to a lesser degree.

Brave Alison only found the courage three years ago to make the call to report the abuse as she thought it would lift the weight off her shoulders she has been carrying for over 30 years.

“I had to relive my trauma and relive all those memories in each session trying to heal my mind and get peace,” Alison said in her victim impact statement which she bravely read out in court in front of sicko Johnson.