A now 24-year-old woman has waived her legal right to anonymity so that her father can be publicly named following his conviction and sentencing at Trim Circuit Court yesterday for a series of sexual assaults on her when she was nine to 13 years old.
Danny McGovern (48), Fordstown, Athboy, Co Meath, pleaded guilty to two counts of indecent assault, two counts of sexual assault and one count of buggery on his daughter, Emma, at their home in Athboy between April 1989 and April 1993.
In a moving statement to the court yesterday his daughter said he had robbed her of her childhood, education and a normal life and it was the ultimate betrayal of a daughter by her father.
She said she took medication daily in her battle with food and tried, "to control the urge to hurt myself never mind to kill myself if I eat anything at all". She said the pain and hurt were unbearable and "luckily one day he will leave us behind but not for me my sentence is a life sentence," she said.
The court heard that a rope hung from the attic door and it ended in a hangman's noose and her father told her he would hang himself if she told anybody about the abuse.
The judge took into account that McGovern had co-operated with the Garda, pleaded guilty to the charges and he was satisfied, based on evidence from a clinical psychiatrist with the Granada Institute, that he was at low risk of reoffending.
He imposed a four-year jail term for the buggery offence and three years for each of the other four charges. All sentences are to run concurrently. After his release McGovern will be placed under the supervision of the Probation and Welfare Services for five years.
At the request of Ms McGovern, made through the State prosecutor Jonathan Kilfeather, the judge removed her legal right to anonymity, thus allowing her father to be publicly named as a sex offender.