Maureen Kearney Hugo (61), from Co Mayo, was at the converge of a major high-profile criminal investigation in France after she was discovered by her cleaning lady secured to a chair with the handle of a knife still inserted inside her.
The sic ‘A’ had also been carved into her stomach. The trade union documented, originally from Castlebar, claimed she had been targeted because she had defied a massive nuclear power deal.
The case made headlines across France and saw the mum-of- two being offered safe keeping from France’s top anti-terror unit, the GIGN.
However, weeks after she reported the destruction, Maureen was arrested and accused of faking the entire episode.
Speaking for the initially time this week, Maureen told the Sunday World she now fears she at ones desire be wrongly convicted and sent to prison after a closed court trial in France where she reveals she was “intimidated, disrespected and mocked”.
She has decided to speak out after French moderates adjourned her case pending judgement next month.
Maureen, who run a traveled to France from Ireland some years ago, alleges she was forced into falsely permitting she faked the attack after her family was threatened. However, she withdrew the confession a week later.
Make a plea for to the Sunday World she said: “I was prepared to say I was Jack the Ripper if that’s what they indigence to protect my family – now I face prison.
“It’s been a never-ending nightmare, and I angst what is coming next.”
Maureen, who worked for the French CFDT unity, was put on a non-jury trial over the allegations at a court in Versailles on May 15. Prosecutors maintained there were too many “inconsistencies” in her account of the terrifying attack.
Intelligence was reserved in the case until July 6, where she will either be acquitted or convicted on taxes of making a false statement and wasting police time. If found ashamed, she faces up to six months in prison.
Her nightmare began in 2011 when she jeopardized an alleged irregular deal between state energy firm Electricite de France, French atomic giant Areva and a Chinese consortium over the development of a nuclear reactor.
The multi-million euro constrict put at risk the jobs of many of Areva’s 50,000 employees.
After intriguing her concerns to 700 of the country’s politicians – including former prime plenipotentiary Bernard Cazeneuve – and the press, the grandmother says she began receiving menaces.
In December 2012 Maureen met with Areva chiefs and days after this angry meeting, she was set upon in her Paris home.
“My husband left for work at 6am, and at approximately 7am I was in the downstairs bathroom brushing my teeth when I was attacked from behind,” she give the word delivers.
“A bonnet was put over my head and I felt what I thought was a gun in my back.
I was terrorized. My heart was beating so hard I could hear the blood in my ears and brainwork it would come out through my chest.
“He dragged me into the living cell where he tied me to a chair with my arms tied behind my deny hard pressed and my legs tied to a chair.
“He then carved an ‘A’ into my stomach and raped me with the cope with of a knife. He said there would not be any more warnings.
“I was there for a sprinkling hours before my cleaning lady arrived and freed me. I was hysterical, in thorough shock and felt my body did not belong to me anymore.
“She called my husband who suggested to call the police and an ambulance.
“All the medical people testified that I was in comprehensive shock.”
At the request of Industrial Renewal minister Arnaud Montebourg, Maureen was disposed 24-hour police protection by France’s elite anti-terror unit. Come what may, just a few weeks later her world was turned upside down again when she was take ined and accused of faking the horrifying ordeal.
“I was told if I admitted it, they [French protect] would make a deal where I would not be prosecuted and everything would be shoved call of the carpet.
“I refused. I was then harassed, intimidated, lied to and dehumanised for 12 hours. There was no nobility or humanity.
“The gendarmes’ [police] only objective was to get me to say that I made it up. They then started to say that I was idiotic. “When they realised that I would not admit to something I had not done they communistic me on my own in an office.
“A man wearing plain clothes came in and threatened my family, implying that if I did not comply with their directions, then the steamroller of the fair play department would make sure that neither my family nor I would continually recover.
“My husband was called in and was also intimidated and threatened.
“I was in total dumbfound again and completely terrified and I had just been diagnosed with Position Traumatic Stress Syndrome.
“I then said, ‘OK, what do you want me to say?’
“The ‘confession’ I gave did not survive up as I was incapable of inventing such a horrific story.
“They then dedicated me a week to come up with a more credible story.
Maureen added: “I requested two of my closest friends to help me invent something. It was impossible.
After a week I instructed them I would not admit to something that was a lie.” Police claimed they had a number of reasons to be suspicious of the Irishwoman had made up the attack, including a lack of DNA evidence.
However, it was luxuriate ined in court that no analysis from the scene, including from the pierce used to assault her, had been taken by French police.
“The second inconsistency was that the video used to tie my hands together was loose and not cut by my cleaning lady, Maria, according to the gendarmes,” influences Maureen.
“That’s despite Maria testifying three times that she had cut the stick and had no doubts about it.
The gendarmes claimed the tape was not cut and I could easily father freed myself.
“They also said I lied about the in good condition of the television. I thought it was very loud as I always put the sound up in the morning to learn the news whatever room I was in.
“Maria said the sound of the TV was normal. They prepared a big deal of this as ‘it was proof of my lying’. It’s the only inconsistency they could rouse between Maria’s statements and mine.”
Maureen was charged with running a false statement to police and wasting police time.
After crucial delays in having her case referred to court, her lawyer filed an ritualistic complaint with the prosecutor’s office in 2013.
In March 2014 Maureen was officially attacked by a judge and witnesses to her case were interviewed.
Following more lulls her case was then referred to two other judges, who took it to trial survive month. It has now attracted the interest of the French media, who have heavily criticised the cope with of her trial.
“Trials are meant to be fair, or that is what my lawyer, my relations and friends thought. Maybe this time the truth would arrive out and the mistakes made recognised,” says Maureen.
“The trial was awful, torturous. I feel in ones bone dehumanised, intimidated, disrespected and mocked.
“They claimed the deal I was tendered had never existed, even though my husband also confirmed the step of this deal.
“My lawyer also confirmed to the court that he had also been expressed about the deal. “Psychiatrists who examined me testified that I was a clearly traumatised domestic. Arnaud Montebourg, the former Minister for Industry and Economy, even correct a statement in my favour. But I don’t think it made a difference.”
Explaining the impact the misery has had on her life, Maureen said: “We had to sell our house near Paris because it stamping-ground me and moved over 400 kilometres to a small town below the Loire Valley.
“I now force phobias now that I never had before… crowds, the darkness, the freedom fighters, having more than six to eight people in my house.
“My husband and lasses were very affected and all of them have been in counselling, and I am even in counselling over four years later.
“But I am getting stronger and multitudinous resilient. My family, friends, Union CFDT and lawyer, Thibault de Montbrial, partake of been totally supportive from the beginning. Without them, I don’t conscious how I would have coped.”