‘Sexual predator’ sentenced for repeatedly raping his younger sister

A “sexual predator” and child abuser who repeatedly raped and sexually abused his younger sister has been jailed for eight years.

The 52-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was already serving prison sentences for raping five children. He abused one of the children while on bail for abusing the other four girls.

Mr Justice Michael White ordered that the sentence of eight years imprisonment run consecutively to those the man is already serving. He had a release date in 2034 for his previous offences.

The judge described the offences as “brutal and terrifying rapes” and “the most serious of indecent assaults” which were committed without any thought or care for the man’s sister. All but one of the offences occurred when he was over the age of 18, the judge noted.

The man pleaded guilty before the Central Criminal Court to five counts of rape and five counts of indecent assaults against his sister at various locations near their family home on dates between April 18th, 1983 and April 17th, 1990.

A garda sergeant told Shane Geraghty BL, prosecuting, that the man first sexually abused his sister on her 10th birthday. He proceeded to rape and indecently assault her on numerous occasions while she was still in primary school.

The victim reported the offences to gardaí­ in 2019 following the death of her mother.

The man later told gardaí he remembered sexually assaulting his sister and estimated that it happened once a week. He did not deny raping her, only saying he did not remember doing so, but he then pointed at the recording device and said he would “need a brain like that to remember everything he had done”.

‘High risk’

The sergeant described the man as a “sexual predator” who was “an extremely high risk for the safety of children”.

In her victim impact statement, which was read before the court by the sergeant, the woman said she was certain her brother would have repeated “these evil acts” many more times if she had not avoided and prevented it.

The woman said she had always felt safe with her older brothers until “the evil perpetrator” destroyed and took that away. She said from that day on she did not trust her brothers.

She said that for 30 years she hid these “horrendous secrets” and kept them “bottled up” for half a lifetime. She said if the man was not already in prison she would have “taken these secrets to the grave” for fear that he might inflict serious harm on her.

‘Burns in hell’

The woman said her “sick brother’s sick acts of depravity” have stopped her from having her own family. She said she prays he will not come out of prison alive and hopes “he burns in hell”.

Mark Harty SC, defending, said the offences could not be in any way minimised but that his client has attempted to ensure his sister’s trauma in this process has at least been minimised. Counsel said his client’s entire social circle had been his family and that was now lost to him.

Mr Justice White said the case was aggravated by the accompanying violence, the breach of trust, the premeditation involved, the period over which the offences occurred, the severe impact on the victim and the man’s previous convictions for sexual offences.

He said the mitigating factors in the case were the man’s pleas of guilty, his genuine remorse, his behaviour in prison and his low intellectual ability.