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Chapter 1: What warning is given before the episode begins?
And a warning before we begin. This series contains reference to child sex abuse. Welcome to our seventh and final episode of Pirate Predator. In previous episodes, we told you about Claire, not her real name, the girl who had Eamon Cook's first child when she was just a young teenager.
I was a victim of Eamon Cook from the age of 13.
Claire has kept silent for over 40 years, but listening to this series as it's been publishing, she decided it was finally time to speak out. These are her words, voiced by an actor.
Today, we have words for what happened to me.
Chapter 2: Who is Eamon Cooke and what crimes did he commit?
Child sexual exploitation, sexual abuse, statutory rape, coercive control, psychological abuse, violence and threats, complete control.
You remember that Claire, her child, and her then-boyfriend were targeted by Eamon Cook in a firebomb attack in 1984.
At that time, I was dating a young man. He was targeted because of his association with me. I did occasionally visit his flat and had we been there on the night of the attack, we could both have been killed. Eamon Cook changed his plea to guilty on the morning of his trial. As witnesses, we were left to watch proceedings unfold while he ultimately avoided serving a prison sentence.
That remains a source of profound hurt. He left the court accompanied by an underage girl. For all of this, I feel I received no justice. In 1986, newspaper reports described me as Eamon Cook's girlfriend. In 2026, people finally recognised the truth. I was not his girlfriend. I was his victim.
I'm Peter Mulryan from RTE Documentary on One. This is Pirate Predator. Episode 7. Endgame. This was the case of my career because it took 10 years from start to finish. This is Detective Inspector Gerry Kelly. He's the officer who led the investigation into Cook's abuse. But nobody had any idea of how complex it was all going to turn out. That's for certain.
Throughout those first months of his investigation in the year 2000, Gerry knew he needed more victims to come forward to ensure Cook would face trial. Siobhan was certainly very front and centre in this investigation, as was Ang, but Siobhan was providing different details, bits and pieces, names and addresses and people maybe we should contact.
So Gerry began to build a wider case, but many of Cook's victims were scared. We interviewed several people. There was a number of boys involved. who were interviewed. I remember even interviewing another female victim. These offences had taken place 15, 20 years earlier. The fear that was in them was palpable.
Initially, there were seven victims, including Siobhan and Anne, who agreed to give statements, enough to bring Cook in for questioning in February 2000. We subsequently arrested him one early morning. I remember a nice bright spring morning. Once he was interviewed, he was released, pinned in a file to the DPP. Over the next two years, as he awaited trial, Cook spiraled out of control.
His third wife continued to give birth to more of his children as Gerry Kelly and the other Gardaí continued to work closely with local social services. They had visited Cook House at several times. He intimidated them and his master trick was to write to the Minister for Social Welfare. He would also write long letters to the Minister for Justice.
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Chapter 3: How did Siobháin contribute to the investigation against Cooke?
Unfortunately, I won't be around for, I think, a long time.
So many people want me out of circulation.
The captain's usual ramblings were now tinged with the reality of his situation. The station unfortunately has to do without me for a considerable time now, I think. Time for me to go. Maybe I'll get back in the air at some stage in the future. I think it's going to be the distant future. Goodbye. God bless. The day after this broadcast, on November 4th, Cook again wrote to Paul Williams.
He says, dear Paul, it's me again. This time is a letter from a man on the run with a warrant out for my arrest for breach of a high court order. Paul contacted Gardaí and together they came up with a plan.
Basically, I decided I was going to meet him in a public place.
I was going to give him up to the police, so I rang the police and said, look, I'm meeting this man in the old Red Cow pub. And I remember basically talking to him for a while and I had... Text the guards. I made my excuses and left. So I went back to the car and then as he walked out, three or four guards just surrounded him.
Within a week of his arrest and detention, Cook would finally be on trial for abuse charges facing Siobhan, Anne and two other survivors in court. Even though the women we're calling Mary and Claire were not allowed to testify against Cook, they still attended each day's court hearing.
Six of us that made the original complaint went in and sat together. And Eamon Cook wanted myself and the other lady whose case they had removed from sitting beside the other four victims. But that didn't happen.
When Cook's trial began on November the 18th, 2002, the press seized on a nickname his victims had given him years earlier. Cookie Monster. And now the breadth of his crimes were laid bare. It took almost two hours to read each chart because they had to be read to him separately. The reply was not guilty to each one of them.
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Chapter 4: What challenges did victims face during the investigation?
Everybody was elated.
Cook was convicted on 31 sample sex abuse charges. Weeks later, Siobhan returned to the court for sentencing. And even at this stage, Cook was still trying his best to intimidate.
I walked in, see the judge. We're sitting in a line. And out comes Eamon Cook. Walks in and sits beside me. And he's writing my name over and over again on a journal.
You're welcome back to Five Seven Live. Some news just into us now from the court.
66-year-old Eamon Captain Cook, the founder of pirate radio station Radio Dublin, has been jailed for 10 years for sexually abusing four young girls in the 1970s and 1980s. And jailing him on over 30 charges, Mr Justice Quirk said he could find no mitigating circumstances in favour of Cook. We do hope to have more on that for you.
There was absolutely no remorse. And on that day, we thought it was done and dusted. In the months after his convictions, Eamon Cook was attacked in prison. It's understood he was repeatedly and viciously kicked in his groin area. He recovered from that attack and set about mounting a legal challenge and lodging numerous appeals against his conviction.
In his appeal, Cook managed to successfully argue against his convictions on the grounds of illegal technicality. Oh, like talk about a kick in the stomach. That was massive. Jerry Kelly again. The judge failed to warn the jury due to the passage of time that the witness's memories could be affected and the court criminal appeal held with him.
Although Anne could see the Court of Criminal Appeal had little alternative but to release Cook, that didn't make it any easier. There wasn't any way around it, in particularly historical cases.
So he walked because his rights were breached. It's a fucking, it's, oh my word, the irony.
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