A woman who could have well have been the first victim of paedophile David Sullivan is urging other victims who have not done so yet to come forward.

Susie Johnston claimed Sullivan began to sexually abuse her in the Model School House on Dublin Road, Enniskillen when she was nine years old. She and her family lived next door to the Sullivans; her father was vice-principal, while Sullivan was the principal.

This was in the 1960s – 20 years before Sullivan carried out his litany of sexual abuse on children.

Mrs. Johnston believes that Sullivan was abusing people in those intervening decades, and that there are other victims out there that have yet to come forward.

“I’d be really keen to know if somebody else will come forward, because there has to have been quite a few [other Sullivan victims] between those years,” said Mrs. Johnston, who now lives in Canada, where she moved to in 1977.

“You know he didn’t stop. They [paedophiles] never do. They hone their craft; they find different ways of getting away with it, and they don’t stop.

“It’s an illness, and nothing was done to him, so why would he be scared to continue?

“But if there is anything I can do to try and get these people to come forward, I will do it,” she vowed.

“There was something really sick going on, and because of the way it has affected me, I want to fight back as much as I can and help other people,” added Mrs. Johnston.

She spoke to police about Sullivan in 2019, but she also revealed that she went to the police in the 1980s about the abuser, but nothing came out of it.

“In the 1980s I did go to the Enniskillen police. The one man I talked with seemed interested but never called me back – that was it,” she said.

This apparent lack of a follow-up or investigation at the time makes Mrs. Johnston wonder how much was known about Sullivan and his actions by others.

“[It] makes me wonder, was he aware that it had gone to the police? It makes me wonder.”

Sullivan’s badly decomposed body was discovered near Belcoo in 2000, with his decapitated head found a few days later.

But despite his death, Mrs. Johnston still has no closure, and says the effects of Sullivan’s abuse still lives with her today.

She told this paper: “Because he was murdered – and this is an awful thing to say – I wish I could shake the hand of the guy who did it, or the guys who did it. I am pretty sure it was some of the little boys he hurt [who killed Sullivan] out of vengeance.

“That’s awful. That shows a very callous side of me, but he got what he deserved. I got no closure. Nothing was done for me,” she added.

These days, Mrs. Johnston visits a psychologist, who has been a great help in dealing with what she experienced.

However, she believes that others might be going through the same feelings and trauma that she did, but are not dealing with it all, and need to speak up.

Calling on other possible victims to come forward, and to seek any support they need, she said: “It is always there, needling at you.

“This is what I want to get out – you can’t just bury your head in the sand and hope it will go away.

“I mean, what, 60 years later [to still be affected]? Those 60 years have been riddled with upset, which has this [Sullivan] at the root of it.”