A 73-YEAR-OLD man was yesterday convicted of nine additional charges in connection with the rape of his two daughters and the sexual abuse of his son.
A Central Criminal Court jury had found him guilty of 80 charges on Thursday and concluded their deliberations yesterday.
They acquitted him of two counts of sexual assault and failed to agree on verdicts for another seven charges. Mr Justice George Birmingham had previously ordered them to return not guilty verdicts on a further 17 counts.
The Dublin man had pleaded not guilty to more than 100 offences against two daughters when they were aged between five and 11 and against his son aged between three and six at various locations from 1997 to 2002.
The abuse happened in the family home and in locations around the country including shopping centre toilets and on the Dart. Evidence was heard that after the HSE took one of the girls into care, the accused would get her to run away so he could rape her.
Following his conviction, the court heard from Det Gda Deirdre Walsh that the man had previous convictions for indecent assault. The jury of eight men and four women took more than 13 hours to reach their verdicts after a seven-week trial.
Mr Justice Birmingham thanked them for their “outstanding commitment” and said their service was “a splendid example of citizenship at its best.”
He ordered that the man be placed on the sex offenders’ register and remanded him in custody until sentencing in October.
The court heard evidence that the three children were first taken into care in February 2000 but the two female complainants were returned home later that year on condition that the accused leave the family home.
He told the court during his evidence that his family persuaded him to return some weeks later.
A court made an order requiring the children to be returned to care in October 2001 and the family absconded out of the Dublin area for a time but were later found by gardaí and the children returned to care.
The girls were placed in care homes from which they repeatedly escaped and later placed in foster homes. The boy was placed with a foster family from which he absconded only once when his biological family left Dublin in October 2001.
The eldest girl, now aged 19, told Isobel Kennedy SC, prosecuting, that she was sexually abused from the age of six in the sitting room where she slept on a couch. She said after she was initially taken into care she ran away and was abused by her father when he picked her up in a car.
The second daughter, now aged 18, told Ms Kennedy that she was sexually abused from the age of four by her father “in the sitting room, his room, my room or the car.” She said she used to run away from care homes with her sister and they would be abused. This continued until she went to a foster home.
The now 17-year-old son gave evidence that his father sexually abused him in his bedroom and in the bathroom from the age of three until he was six when he was taken into care and placed with a foster family. He said that his life before he went into care could be described as “living in hell”.
The accused man gave evidence in his own defence and said the family home “could not have been happier” and denied physically or sexually abusing his children.
He said he was interviewed by gardaí in May 2002.
He agreed with defence counsel, Blaise O’Carroll SC, that he was interviewed by gardaí again in 2006 in relation to allegations of sexual abuse and later charged.
He said he pleaded not guilty because the offences never happened.
An older brother and sister of the complainants gave evidence that they were not sexually abused by their father and that they did not recall anything untoward happening with their younger siblings.