A woman whose parents are both in prison has said she still finds it difficult to “comprehend that both of my parents are in prison for abusing me as a kid”. 

Sophia Murphy’s mother, Jacqueline Curran, is currently serving an 18 month prison sentence for child cruelty, while her father received an 18 year sentence for the abuse of six girls. 

Reflecting on her harrowing experiences, Ms Murphy said her emotions are “all over the place”. 

“It's still hard to get my head around and to comprehend that both of my parents are in prison for abusing me as a kid,” she explained on Lunchtime Live. 

“Just my feelings and emotions are a bit scattered.”

Ms Murphy continued that her earliest memory dates back to when she was three and even then it is one in which her father abuses her. 

“My first visual memory is sitting on the bus as a three year old,” she recalled. 

“I'll never forget, like my little black patent shoes and my ankle socks and my father was abusing me. 

“There was guys outside the bus and all that was going through my head, ‘They're going to see him.’

“My whole life, I carried that fear, I lived in survival mode.”

Ms Murphy said the abuse perpetrated by her father, John Murphy, was “constant” throughout her childhood. 

“I've said it many times, like there wasn't a day that I wasn't around my father where there wasn't a touch or verbal abuse or physical abuse or sexual abuse,” she said. 

“My mother ignored it all and, obviously, she admitted now that she knew stuff was going on and I always knew she knew.

“You don't you don't ask your six, seven, eight, nine, 10 year old kid, ‘Has your father been touching you?’ It's not a standard question to ask in any household.”

It was only years later that Ms Murphy realised he was also abusing her late sister, Steph. 

When she told Steph that she was going to the Guards, Steph replied, “Dad’s done it to me.” 

“It turned out there were more victims,” Ms Murphy revealed. 

“There were six altogether that he's been sentenced for.”

The process of giving statements to Gardaí lasted two weeks and Ms Murphy led to a significant deterioration in Ms Murphy’s mental health. 

“I really went downhill with addiction after that. Like I just spiralled out of control after that,” she said. 

Ms Murphy’s father was convicted and sentenced in 2017. 

However, it was not the end of the legal process for the family as Gardaí recommended that Ms Murphy’s mother be prosecuted for child cruelty. 

“She failed to protect all of us as children,” she said. 

“We grew up in so much fear; she was a bully. 

“We had no like normal love whatsoever and obviously she knew what my father was doing.

“So, there was a lot of jealousy there as well - it's just so complex.”

Jacqueline Curran pleaded guilty to two charges of child cruelty, but denied a number of others, which meant she “dragged it through to the bitter end”. 

She was jailed for 18 months, with the final four suspended.

Anyone who has been impacted by domestic violence can contact Women’s Aid’s National Freephone Helpline 1800 341 900 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Main image: A woman looks out of a window. Picture by: Alamy.