A man described as a pillar of his community has been given a three-year sentence for a series of sex offences against three sisters that started when they were 12 years old.
Frank McHugh (66), Narin, Portnoo, Co Donegal, was sentenced to three years with 11 months suspended when he admitted 17 sexual assaults on the sisters between October 1977 and February 1985. He was placed on the sex offenders register. One of the offences occurred when the sisters were still waking their mother the night before her funeral.
Donegal Circuit Court was told the father of three was a retired Bord na Móna employee, a peace commissioner, a co- founder of a community centre of which he was chairman, a regular churchgoer, a non-drinker and a non-smoker.
Two of his three victims were in court with their husbands. The third, also married, was absent. The oldest victim said in her victim impact report, read in court, that in 2010, she came within hours of taking her life and continued to have nightmares and sleep disturbances.
In 2011, when each sister became aware the abuses were also being committed against her siblings, the girls told their father.
Suffered in silence
Another sister said she suffered in silence for 28 years.
“He destroyed my teenage years that should have been happy and carefree. The horrible things he did to me haunt me to this day.”
The third sister said: “This abuse has been a huge burden I have carried all my life. He took away my innocence as a child. He had no right.”
Earlier the court was told by investigating officer Det Garda David Moore that two of the girls were aged 12 when they were abused. McHugh had pleaded guilty to one sample charge against each of them.
Cormac Ó Dúlacháin SC, defending, told the court that McHugh was involved in every community initiative in his area. He apologised to his victims and to his own family and acknowledged that he had destroyed many people’s lives.
Judge John O’Hagan described the case as “appalling and “horrific”. He noted the defendant could be identified but there must be no publication of his victims’ names.