Second Liddle victim: courts are failing in their duty to protect children

Last week Emma Gault waived her right to anonymity to speak out against the man whom she says “wrecked” her childhood.

And this week another woman has described to the Impartial Reporter how the “opportunistic” Liddle inappropriately touched her when he stopped to ask her for directions close to her home decades ago.

Liddle (65) from Moorlough Road, Lisnaskea, was given a deferred sentence last month after he was caught trying to look up school girls’ skirts at a supermarket in Belfast in February this year.

He is currently on a three-year sexual offenders’ rehabilitation probation programme for breaching a court imposed SOPO (Sexual Offences Prevention Order) by going to a swimming pool at a Ballycastle caravan park in July 2011.

Now living and working with young people in Belfast, but originally from Fermanagh, the woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, told the Impartial Reporter this week that Liddle had been charged in 1983 for indecently assaulting her.

She said she had been very shocked to learn he had been caught for his recent offence “so far from home”.

“I used to work right beside that big Tesco store,” she explained, “A lot of school children would be coming in and out of there. So when I read about his latest court appearance I just thought: that’s his kind of typical stomping ground.” And although keen to stress she does not sympathise with the man who molested her when she was a child, she says she believes “he cannot help himself”.

“To say I have a certain degree of sympathy with the man would suggest my feelings are not as strong as they are,” she said, “But he clearly can’t help himself. I don’t know if he would choose to do what he does.

“He is controlled by something we do not understand. And if that’s the case, I don’t think treatment does work -- prevention is the only kind of cure here.” She says she believes victims are being let down by the way courts have dealt with Liddle in the past.

“As a parent now I don’t know how my own parents controlled their anger when they found out what happened to me,” she said, “I think one the greatest acts of restraint is to let the law deal with those sort of offences justly. And I don’t know whether the law is doing that at the minute.

“I don’t know if it is protecting young children.

“As someone who works with young people, I have a duty of care to the children in my charge. I don’t know what the guiding principles are for judges -- but I would have thought if somebody is in danger they would have a duty of care to protect them and I don’t think they are in this case.

“The courts seem to be working on a case by case basis as opposed to a cumulative effect”.

The woman said that the court’s “leniency” towards Liddle had left her feeling frustrated and powerless.

“I just wish he could be monitored in a way that would keep children safe.

“If he is prepared to get on a bus to an out of town shopping centre in Belfast it shows how clever and sneaky he is.

“Why would he have any need to go there? He is not going there to buy bread.” The teacher says she believes tagging Liddle would be an effective means of monitoring him.

“If he was tagged in some way at least they would be able to monitor his movements -- I just don’t understand where the justice is in the way he is being dealt with.” The Fermanagh woman recalled how she had been approached by Liddle as a child at the end of the lane leading to her family home.

“He had stopped and asked me for directions,” she explained, “When he started touching me I knew it was wrong but I didn’t know how to get away.

“I can remember shouting at him just before I ran away. I ran up our lane and I went straight in and told my mum and dad.

“At that time I just remember being able to give a good description of his car -- I still remember what it looks like. The police had him within an hour.

“I think he was working for an insurance company at the time. Because he had stopped and was asking me names and where people lived.

“He was very opportunistic -- he saw his opportunity and he took it.” Describing herself as a strong person, the woman says she has always been determined not to allow the incident to “define” her.

“It was a long time ago now. I wouldn’t say it ruined my childhood, but it certainly had an impact.

“It’s not the event in my life where things began and ended from. I have been able to manage it. But it marked my childhood.

“Now that I’m a parent I would say it is actually harder for parents to have to deal with.

“As a child I didn’t understand the full impact of it, but I knew it was wrong.

“When I’m down home in Fermanagh now, I would go about my daily business without generally giving him a thought.

“It would be the articles in the Impartial that would upset me. I see his name mentioned again and it brings it back to me.

“Usually a friend or family member would text just to warn me that he has been in the paper again. Every time I surprise myself by getting upset. I think it’s a sadness for innocence lost.

“I was a typical child from the 1980s -- not like it is today.

“The most exciting things I would have been doing was bringing in the cows! I had a very sheltered, lovely Fermanagh childhood.

“He was the one blot on it.” Asked whether she felt the courts took the impact upon victims into consideration the woman said: “I don’t think they could consider this from a victim’s perspective.

“But maybe even if they could think of it from a human perspective -- from the perspective of a parent, an aunt, an uncle, a brother or a sister.

“Unless you are in that situation you couldn’t see it from a victim’s perspective. Maybe if the judges talked to some victims though -- just listen to what a victim has to say, it might make a difference.”