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Chapter 1: What information has come forward about Eamon Cook since the series began?
Since we started publishing this series, we've been asking listeners for information about Eamon Cook. Over 60 people have come forward, including victims speaking out for the very first time. Among those who emailed documentaries at rte.ie was a man who, in the mid-1980s, was an 18-year-old on his way home to Inchicore. One night later, I was coming up from Kilmainham, up into Highland Shop.
It was a newsagent shop, and I went in, spoke to the owner there for a couple of minutes. When Mark, not his real name, left the shop, the street was deserted, and he stumbled across something on the ground. I stood on a diary, a small plastic diary. So I picked it up, had a quick look at it. There was money in the back of it, but it turned out to be dollars. So I just stuck it back inside.
I had a look around. There was no one there. Mark hurried home, where he looked inside the diary. On the centre pages, the first line on it said, I contacted Gard, such a name, told him the drugs would be there Wednesday evening in the wharf tavern. Don't raid the place before eight o'clock because I'll still be there.
The diary Mark had found was packed with tips for Gardaí to seize drugs and those dealing drugs. There was a series of items like that, times and dates and things that had gone on. It was like an achievements record. The whole pages were full. There was a number on the front of the diary, a phone number that Mark recognised but couldn't remember why.
The only thing that was on the front of the book was a phone number, 758684, and I knew I knew it, but I couldn't place it. Moments later, the doorbell rang. And my father opened the door, and there was a man standing there, and I recognised him straight away. Immediately, Mark knew what the number was. It was Radio Dublin's phone number. And in that moment, everything made sense.
It was Eamon Cooke. He looked like Columbo. He had a Mack coat on him and he had the top of it held in with one hand because it was starting to rain slightly. And he said, I lost the diary and I believe someone might have picked it up. And my father said, boy, how would you know that? And he said, I got direction from Highland Shop.
The diary isn't important, he said, his exact words, but there's money in the back of it and the dollars are of sentimental value. So my father said to him, well, you obviously own it so because you know the dollars are in it. So my father just folded it back up and handed it to him and he said goodnight and my father shut the door and said to me, don't get involved with that fella ever.
Because at the time there was a drugs issue and if he was working with the guards it was his business. Mark never encountered Cook again, but he knew what he had seen in that diary. He was informing you. He was telling the guards when to raid, and he would not be there. Mark's encounter with Cook leaves a lingering question.
What did Eamon Cook stand to gain by acting as a guard informant, tracking drug deals around Dublin? I'm Peter Mulrhyne. From RTE Documentary on One, this is Pirate Predator. And a warning before we begin. This series contains reference to child sex abuse. At the end of our last episode, it was 1986, and Anne had finally told Garthie that as a child, she had been abused by Eamon Cooke.
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Chapter 2: What did Mark discover in the diary he found?
I said, get the fuck out. Out of here. And then he turned and he went into a rage. I'll be back. All that kind of threats.
That encounter left Anne rattled. More than a decade after her abuse began, Cook was still intimidating her. She alerted Garthie, but again, nothing happened. Cook, however, became even more vindictive and threatening.
And he did come back, only this time he came back with a little girl. A little girl who was maybe seven, eight. And he sent her in to the shop. And she was crying when she came in. Now, when I look back on that, I'm thinking, I should have called guards. I should have said, grab that child. But you're in your own frozen fear. I was only 18, 19.
It's one of my greatest regrets. That little girl's face. We don't know who the little girl in Cook's company was, but she was clearly under his control, clearly another victim. Throughout the 1980s, the number of Cook's victims began to grow exponentially.
Through both new victims reaching out to us and through research, our producers, Nicolene and Shauna, can give us a glimpse into some of those experiences.
It's really difficult to digest these stories. So we know from our research that in the 1980s he was abusing two sisters. On one occasion he brought the older sister to the Savoy Cinema on O'Connell Street where he sat beside her and started publicly kissing her. He would have been 51 at this stage and she only a child.
An usherette witnessed this kissing and called Cook out on it asking him to leave the cinema. An argument broke out and the victim stood up for Cook, claiming he was her uncle. And that really demonstrates that power dynamic that would have been a play there, you know, a vulnerable child.
A woman got in touch with us to tell us how Cook assaulted her. When she was just eight years old, she called in to see her older sister who was a telephonist at Radio Dublin. Eamon Cook met her and told her to follow him into a room where he'd show her some toys. He then began to grope her, putting his hands under her clothing.
Now, this young girl's mother had just died and Cook knew that and took full advantage of her vulnerability.
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Chapter 3: How did Eamon Cook react to Anne's report of abuse?
I didn't really know the man. He went in and out, like he lived so close to us. He was inconspicuous. I knew his name was Cook. Never spoke to him in my life.
To some of his neighbours, Eamon Cook appeared like a relatively normal family man.
Kids seemed to like him. This road was a playground for children.
Did you ever meet the man?
Oh, he didn't pass.
Yeah.
Never really spoken to him. No, not really, no. No, I thought my kids were down there playing quite happy because he had everything in his back garden for children. So what kind of stuff would he have in the garden?
Play things, like swings that we couldn't have had, and slides, slides.
Everything to attract kids.
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Chapter 4: What were the consequences of Cook's intimidation tactics?
In December 1994, Cook's third wife became the first victim to speak publicly about clerical sex abuse in Ireland, exposing the horrific abuse she suffered from Father Bill Carney. Eamon Cook stood by her side, even detailing to RTE News how he had personally tried to catch the priest confessing to the abuse.
We recorded a number of his conversations, both when he came to visit us and when he'd telephone. So recordings of those conversations and transcripts went off to the guards and to the church. They did have opportunity before that to defraud him. He had been in court on an indecent assault charge and was convicted in 1984. Now, the church should have been or would have been aware of that.
Years later, reports would reach Gardaí tying Eamonn Cook to a 1980s paedophile ring alongside Father Bill Kearney. When you consider that and Cook's history of abuse, it's a staggering irony that he stood in front of the nation, publicly championing a victim of child abuse while continuing to be a prolific predator himself.
I opened a newspaper And there was a headline in it, and it was Eamon Cook and this woman petitioning a court case against the Catholic Church. So that just spiralled me out of control a bit.
By now, Siobhan was in her 20s and married with her first child. Having tried to bury Cook's abuse for so long, this was the moment things began to fall apart for her.
I was having a drink nearly every third night or something just to try and sleep. But then the nightmares were hitting too much. I had flashbacks and I went back to the GP and she put me on medication. I'd never been on anything strong in my life. And they didn't work.
And I remember one time saying, maybe if I take an extra two or three, I might sleep because I was taking these instead of the alcohol. And I woke up in St. James's because they thought I was trying to take an overdose, which I actually wasn't. I was trying to sleep.
By the late 1990s, Cook's wife had given birth to more children, six in total now. But behind closed doors, Cook had revealed his true character almost as soon as they got married, and that continued throughout their marriage. As she later detailed...
It didn't take long until he turned nasty. He tried to strangle me. Another time, he tried to drown me in the bathtub. And on another occasion, he kicked me down the stairs. He controlled everything, but he was obsessed with the radio station.
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Chapter 5: How did Eamon Cook's criminal behavior escalate in the 1980s?
It had come from the authorities through Canada headquarters. The file on Gerry's desk had come from a Europol, from British police. We took on that investigation. It was a matter of having to arrest Damon Cook and interview him in relation to these allegations. This boy, he was in the care of the...
Cook was questioned by Gardaí, but UK Crown prosecutors did not proceed with any charges, partially due to Cook's denials and threats of his own legal action. Ruthless in his approach to things, but a very bright man. And you underestimated him at your peril. And I think when we started dealing with him, we actually had no idea of how cunning, how ruthless and how capable he was.
But Cook's arrest and questioning didn't go unnoticed locally, with news of it eventually reaching Siobhan.
I made my mind up then. I went home, discussed it with my husband, and I said, I can't live with this anymore. I discussed it with my parents. I said, I have to say something. I didn't want to be part of the equation that would make other children suffer.
And so, in 1999, Siobhan rang the Garda station. I was in Roninstone station one night, this I remember quite clearly, and I got a phone call saying, Out of the blue, this lady called Siobhan rang me and she said she wanted to report abuse in relation to Eamon Cook.
But they took it very seriously and they were very nice and they said, well, it's up to you, Siobhan, if you want to make a statement, which I did.
Siobhan then got in touch with Anne, who was still living in London, to tell her what she'd done. Siobhan had rang me to say that the guards were now interested. What do you think? And I said, look, well, I'm happy to talk to them, give them my number. So they called and then Gerry Kelly flew over to London to interview me and get a statement.
Siobhan and Anne would eventually become the heroes of this story. The wheels of justice were finally turning and not a moment too soon. As this series has been publishing, someone who used to work for Radio Dublin contacted us to say that in 2014, a recording was uploaded online of a conversation between Cook and a young girl.
The circumstances of this call are not clear.
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