How child rapists are living ‘cushy’ lives behind bars in Castlerea Prison

Record numbers of sex offenders are behind bars with more than 800 now serving time for crimes such as rape, sexual assault and possessing child abuse images.

The Grove at Castlerea is made up of separate chalets in which prisoners look after themselves, cook their own food and enjoy greater freedom to mix with each other.

Inmates are usually sent there ahead of being released or before they are sent to an open prison, according to Sunday World sources.

Among those in the chalets are Declan Hannon, who fought a legal battle to keep his anonymity after being sentenced to seven years for child rape in 2019.

He had repeatedly raped a nine-year-old girl in the late 1980s, telling her it was their “secret”, in what a judge described as the “brutal and cynical rape of an innocent child”.

He shares a chalet with Tinder rapist Peter Loughran, who attacked a woman in her home after meeting her on the dating app.

He was sentenced to seven and a half years in 2021.

During the attack, Loughran banged the woman’s head off the floor and slapped her in the face when she started praying aloud.

Another resident at The Grove is Liam O’Dwyer, who was “obsessed” with a child and is serving an 11-year sentence.

He was convicted of sexual assault and rape which took place in his then partner’s bedroom between October 1996 and December 2001 when the girl was aged between 12 and 17.

One of O’Dwyer’s housemates is ‘singing priest’ Terry Loughran who got four and a half years last year after being convicted of sexually assaulting a teenager he had groomed.

The well-known Limerick priest was described as a “sexual predator” who assaulted the teenager in parish houses in Co Limerick, in St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, on trips abroad and in hotel rooms.

The victim was aged between 14 and 17 at the time from May 1998 to January 2001, while Loughran was in his late 30s.

Former Longford teacher Cian Cooney, who sexually exploited a 13-year-old he befriended on Facebook, is in The Grove but is due for release this year.

Well-known in GAA circles, Cooney had worked as a PE and geography teacher at a well-known south Dublin secondary school.

The increasing number of sex offenders in prison is proving a headache for staff who have to keep them separate from other inmates for their own safety.

With overall prisoner numbers also going up, staff also have to keep members of rival gang factions apart and sex offenders are being sent to prisons where they previously would not have been detained, sources told the Sunday World.

The Midlands Prison has 400 sex offenders while Arbour Hill has more than 200. These make up the bulk of the sex offenders behind bars.

But even the high-security Portlaoise prison is holding a small number of sex offenders including Eoin Berkeley, who is serving 14 years for attacking a Spanish student.

He terrorised the teenager for 21 hours, drugging and tying her up as he raped her in a tent near Sandymount in Dublin.

Berkeley also told her he had killed six people, making her believe he would murder her too, before she finally escaped when her fell asleep.

There are also sex offenders in Mountjoy and Cork prisons as well as the Training Unit which is part of the Mountjoy complex.

Inmates there include former Fianna Fail councillor, Fermoy town mayor and solicitor John Hussey, who was jailed for five years for the sexual assault of an eight-year-old girl during a children’s sleepover party in his home in 2003.

In her victim impact statement, the woman said she could not grasp 20 years ago how any adult would want to hurt a young child for their own gratification.

There are also prisoners in the system who are designated as if they are sex offenders because of the nature of their crimes, but have not being convicted of sexual offence.