Two more alleged victims of Irvinestown school principal John McElholm who may have abused dozens of children over many years while at St. Paul’s Primary School are calling on the Police Service of Northern Ireland to state publicly that he was a paedophile.

Last week it emerged that the specialist detectives who have spent the last year investigating allegations of historical child sexual abuse in Fermanagh have dropped their investigation into the former Fermanagh GAA chairman. But two of McElholm’s alleged victims say the first they heard about the decision by detectives when they read about it in this newspaper last Thursday.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing; I saw his face and thought what is going on, then I realised they were dropping the case. I sat down and I cried,” said one victim, who did not wish to be named.

“I couldn’t believe that a man could do that to me and others and nothing can be done. I know he is dead but I still feel we need closure. Is it because of who he was? Because he was so high up in the school and so high up in the GAA?” she asked.

She says she was sick when she read the PSNI response which stated that there were “no further lines of enquiry to pursue”.

“I felt sick and then I was sick; I went into the bathroom and got sick. I thought I would be all right but I wasn’t, I am not. He has ruined so many people’s lives and he has got away with it, even in death.

“The reason I feel like this is because I am back in that school, I am back in that room, I can still feel him feeling my breasts, I am back at nine or ten years of age. Why should he get away with it even now?” asked the woman, who is now 55-years-old.

“I feel gutted, I have been let down, that first person who came forward had guts to come forward to do it, I feel sorry for her. Nobody is listening, your newspaper is listening, but I don’t know about the police.”

She believes the education authorities should also open an investigation into the allegations of abuse at St. Paul’s Primary School, something the current staff and management at the school have been shocked and appalled by according to correspondence issued to parents last year.

“The school knew back then,” she claimed, “and they [the education authorities] should be investigating this too. Pupils knew so the teachers should have known. The GAA need to look at this too, they should have an investigation to find out if he did anything while their chairman.”

She now wants the PSNI to publicly state that McElholm, who died in 1995, was in fact a paedophile.

“I feel let down by the police, they didn’t ring me to tell me what was going in the paper. McElholm took my innocence and I couldn’t say no. I am asking the police to come forward and make a statement that John McElholm was a paedophile because he is not a paedophile going by what the police said last week.

“And I am calling on those people in Irvinestown who knew what was going out to come forward too. Why would I ring you to tell my private business when I wouldn’t tell my parents? There are people still alive who are still living in Irvinestown who knew what was going on and can help us by speaking out,” she said.

Another alleged victim, who claims she was abused by McElholm between the ages of eight and 11, says she was “deflated” and in a “state of shock” when she read the PSNI decision last week.

“I couldn’t believe it and thought to myself that he has won, that John McElholm wins again. I have a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach and it is still there. I do not want it to go away just like that, people need to know how we feel and what that monster did.

“If the police said he was a paedophile it would help, definitely. I think they want it to go away, I feel like they are sweeping it under the carpet; what odds with these people, with we victims. Why can’t they come out and say what he did? I would sleep better at night if they did,” she said.

She says the photograph McElholm smiling “makes me feel ill, makes me feel that he has won, that he has come out on top again.”

“The police need to go back and look at the statements and realise that there is a case here; all these people can’t come forward and nothing done. I am every bit angry now as I was when I first spoke out last year. I am angry at the police for walking away from it.

“I feel we are all being victimised all over again and the fact they won’t come to a conclusion to say this is what he done hurts me. The police need to say he would face justice if he was alive today,” she told this newspaper.