Coleraine pupils fought to oust Donegal paedophile Patrick Sharkey

He told Spotlight he and another boy were sleeping beside Sharkey in the same bed in the cottage in Donegal in 1982.

Eamon, who was aged 14 at the time, woke up in the middle of the night to find Sharkey abusing him and fought him off.

When his parents heard what had happened, they went with Eamon to the school principal Dermot McNally.

He added: “My mother and father were wanting to talk to the police. And his response to my mother was, ‘Mrs McLaughlin, do you know how much a solicitor costs?’

“[It was] as if he was knew that they weren’t of great wealth to pay for a solicitor.”

Eamon believes there was no action as a consequence of his parents’ warning.

He said: “Nothing. There was nothing done in the months after it, the weeks after it. There was nothing.”

Spotlight has also spoken to the other boy in the bed with Sharkey and Eamon that night.

He had already been abused on other weekends. He doesn’t want his name disclosed – we’re calling him ‘Jack’.

He said: “Sometime during the night I woke up and Eamon [was] standing at the end of the bed shouting at him, cursing at him.

“I knew what had happened and Eamon lay down at the side of the bed and I fell asleep again.

“The next thing I remember is just sitting at the kitchen table in the morning and Eamon telling me what, not exactly what had happened, he just said, Sharkey tried his hand with him.”