A woman who endured horrific sexual assaults in a blackmail ploy orchestrated by her own father has revealed she bravely chose to waive anonymity to ensure her abuser was named.
David Masterson, 56, from Dublin, Ireland, was jailed for 17 years for a seven-year abuse campaign against daughter Charlene, now 32, which started when she was aged 18.
Because of the sexual crimes carried out against her, Charlene has an automatic right to lifelong anonymity, but the close family relationship between them means restrictions may have also protected her abuser’s identity.
Charlene – who now campaigns to protect women – revealed she made the agonising decision to waive her right to ensure he wasn’t shielded from his crimes.
She told the Indo Daily podcast: ‘Waiving anonymity isn’t for everybody, it really isn’t.
‘I had to be named for him to be named, if you name him then it’s very easy to figure out it’s me.
‘It’s important for people to realise if anybody is out there that has been raped they don’t know their perpetrator or they’re not related to them they can remain anonymous,
‘But I just think it’s an important story and I know that by waiving anonymity I just wanted to help even one person.’
Charlene revealed her father started abusing her in 2007 after making up a bizarre blackmail plot which forced her into performing sex acts while blindfolded and with music playing in her ears.
It all began when the then teenager received an anonymous text message which claimed to have incriminating information about her that would be leaked if she did not perform the acts. It later transpired the text had been sent by David.
Her father would pretend to let a person into their home while Charlene was blindfolded and had music in her ears. Pretending he was a different person each time, David would then force her to give him oral sex and in turn, sexually assault her.
The abuse started shortly after she turned 18, and afterwards she realised her father had been controlling her since her early teens.
She said from the moment the abuse started she stopped considering him her dad. She added: ‘Family members said to me “he’s still your dad”. That to me is extremely disrespectful for abuse survivors or victims.
‘I haven’t had a dad since I was 18, since he laid his hand on me for the first time. That was it. I don’t want to hurt him and I won’t portray him in a light that he wasn’t violent growing up but I haven’t had a father since that day.
‘For people to say he’s still your dad, I’m like no, if he was he wouldn’t have done what he did.
In her victim statement in court, Charlene said there was still a ‘massive stigma’ in Ireland around rape.
She has since been campaigning to change the system to develop a message similar to FAST alert for victims of strokes.
She added her abuse took place for seven and a half years and she had had seven years since to ‘process it’, adding: ‘I’m out the other side now’.
Speaking about how the campaign of abuse began, she told the Indo podcast: ‘I randomly got messages from a number, I didn’t know the number, and it read ”I know what you did”, and anyone that knows me, knows I hate being in trouble, so I immediately panicked.’
Charlene explained that, although she hadn’t done anything to be exposed for, she still ‘tried to fix’ things, and replied to the person at the other end of the phone – not realising it was her own father.
When Charlene replied, the ‘blackmailer’ threatened to have her father fired from his job at an airline at Dublin airport unless she met his demands.
The messages began demanding that she do sexual things with men while threatening to send information to her father’s work if she didn’t.
When she told her father about what was happening, he told her that she would have to do these things because his job was at risk.
She said: ‘The one person you go to for help is your dad, and I did, and his response was ”you’re going to have to”. It wasn’t the reaction I was expecting.’
The person texting Charlene never actually explained what she had supposedly done, but she said she was quite ‘naive’ at the time and panicked.
She said: ‘It was him, so he knew I didn’t do anything, I don’t even know how he concocted this whole thing, he knew exactly what I had done, which was nothing.’
It was arranged that her father would let a person into their home and she would do whatever this person wanted while wearing a blindfold and earphones playing music. She was then sexually assaulted.
She said: ‘I remember it vividly, sitting there in whatever he had demanded I wear that night and he would be looking out the window going, ”oh he is coming across the field.”
‘He is meant to be a stranger, so how would my father know what he looks like, and then he pretended to be downstairs and then pretending to walk the person out of the house.
‘He would say ”oh we drove him up to the mountains and he won’t come back again”, like he was trying to play the hero and the protector. After the ‘stranger’ had left he would be the doting father again.’
These attacks continued to occur before escalating to her having to engage sexually with two men while blindfolded.
She said: ‘I had mentally checked out, it did start to get more physical five years in because I started to stand up to him and started to object more to it, he obviously didn’t like that so the coercive control got much worse towards the end.’
Charlene finally discovered her father’s role in the abuse when she attempted to assist her grandmother install a programme on her laptop and found a DVD with a recording of two of the abuse incidents.
She said: ‘I didn’t watch past the first 10 seconds. When he came home I was still getting messages from the stranger and I replied ”I know you are my dad”.
Her father ‘screamed’ and asked how she could think it was him, but she never received anymore blackmail text messages after that.
Charlene said that’s when the abuse turned into ‘open abuse’ in the home, where he would physically grope and rape her.
She added that her father would follow her to her part-time job which she was eventually forced to give up.
When Charlene was 25, she went away on a weekend with friends – against her father’s wishes.
During the time away, she got threatening messages, saying people wanted to meet her.
Her friend at that point asked he was abusing her, she said no, and that he thought what he was doing was ‘completely normal’.
At another point, Charlene left a magazine story about incest out hoping to trigger her father but he ‘laughed it off’.
After Charlene started withdrawing, her trainee social worker friend asked if her father was abusing her and she replied that he wasn’t. But months later, she was able to open up to the friend.
Her father found out the friend knew and told he you’ll ‘never see her again’ and then held her by the throat up against a wall one night even though there was another friend staying over.
In 2014, Charlene’s friends went to her mother and explained the abuse she had endured for years.
As soon as her mother heard what had been happening she told the father to ‘get out’ – and he has had no contact with his wife and daughter since.
She has only seen her father at his mother’s funeral and on three occasions in court since.
After seeing him in court, she was shocked that he hadn’t changed at all physically and didn’t seem any older or more frail.
David was jailed for 17 years for sexually abusing Charlene over a seven year period after first blackmailing her.
The Central Criminal Court heard that David went on to defile three girls, having sexual encounters with two teenage girls and entering into a sexual relationship with a third, who lived with him for a period of time.
Charlene said she hopes her experience helps one person to speak out and for them to know that there are resources and help out there and not to stay silent.
Speaking on RTÉ radio after the case, Charlene said that if her friend, who was training to be a social worker, had not confronted her about the abuse she did not know what would have happened
She said: ‘I feel it’s an important story, and I know by waiving anonymity I could help even just one person to speak out.’
Charlene said her father didn’t show any remorse in court, she said: ‘It was something the judge called out on his day of sentencing.
‘The judge questioned ”no remorse?” and his barrister said ”there is a full admission” and the judge added ”I’m not questioning the admission but can I confirm that there is no remorse” and the barrister said ”no”.
‘It was gut wrenching, you’d think that he will be a little bit sorry. I am never going to get an apology. No remorse, but he has to live with that.’
David accepted there were other men involved, but only told the gardaí one of their names and claimed it was the only name he knew.
Charlene praised the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre for their support during the court case and afterwards.
Then-Taoiseach Micheál Martin was among those Charlene’s strength.
In a tweet Mr Martin said: ‘The decision of Charlene Masterson to waive her anonymity and speak out about the horrific abuse inflicted by her father cannot have been easy, but her bravery and eloquence will have helped and inspired many, many other people in abusive situations.’
Charlene said she once dreamed of being married and having children by the time she was 30, but she doesn’t feel like that will ever happen for her now.
- If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this story, you can contact Rape Crisis online or on 0808 500 2222
