"The man in the X case", unnamed at the time to protect X's identity, was named in 2002 as Sean O'Brien (b.1949/50). In 1994 he was tried and convicted of defilement of a girl under 15 and sentenced to 14 years in prison, reduced on appeal to four years. He was released in 1997 and obtained a taxi driver's licence. In 2002 he was tried and convicted for the 1999 sexual assault and false imprisonment of a 15-year-old girl in his taxi; his three-and-a-half-year sentence was handed down the day before another abortion referendum.