A DUBLIN man who raped and sexually abused the daughter of a family friend while she was aged between six and 12 years has been given a 15-year sentence by Mr Justice Barry White.
The 64-year-old separated father of one pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to three counts of rape and one count of sexual assault, from a total of 72, from 1998 to 2004.
Mr Justice White told the accused that the victim’s father had “entrusted his child’s care to you” and that he had been guilty of “an appalling breach of trust”.
The man’s guilty pleas had come “at the 11th hour”, but he had nonetheless spared his victim the trauma of giving evidence.
Mr Justice White said he considered the gravity of the rapes to warrant a sentence of 15 years on each of the three counts, to run concurrently. He suspended the final three years due to the man’s personal circumstances, including his deteriorating health.
He imposed a sentence of five years in prison on the count of sexual assault, also to run concurrently, and directed that his name be added to the register of sex offenders.
Pauline Walley SC, prosecuting, told Mr Justice White that the Director of Public Prosecutions considered this case to be at the upper end of the scale of child sex abuse.
A psychiatric report on the teenage victim said she felt anger towards her abuser and described her as a vulnerable girl who had trouble expressing how the abuse had affected her. She had feelings of isolation, anxiety and depression and difficulties establishing trusting relationships with boys.
Garda Niall Keenan told Ms Walley that the man had babysat for the victim and her siblings on a weekly basis and the abuse, which consisted of vaginal intercourse, oral sex and digital penetration, began to occur in her bedroom when she was seven years old.
Garda Keenan said that there was no violence, apart from the abuse. He said the victim was frightened she would get in trouble if she told anyone and that her father would kill the accused.
In 2003 arrangements changed and the victim began to go to the accused’s home. The abuse occurred there in a bedroom while the girl’s younger sister was asleep beside her. Another incident occurred at a New Year’s Eve party in 2003 in the home of a relative of the accused man. The next morning the girl’s father became aware that the accused was asleep in the same bed as the girl.
There was a final incident in 2006 when the victim went to stay with the man. The girl then missed a period and confided in a friend who told her father.
Garda Keenan said the man, who has no previous convictions, was interviewed by gardaí and denied he had slept in the same bed as the girl at the party and dismissed all other allegations as lies.
Garda Keenan agreed with John Peart SC, defending, that the man had been married in England but when his marriage broke down he returned to Ireland.
Mr Peart said his client had suffered several minor strokes. He asked the court to consider that his deteriorating health would make a prison sentence more difficult. Mr Peart added that the man wanted to apologise in open court to the victim. He realised the pain and suffering he had caused to the girl and felt guilt and shame.