Man (81) guilty of sex assaults 45 years ago

AN 81-YEAR-OLD man has been found guilty on 30 charges of the indecent assault of two of his daughters, and the rape of one of…

AN 81-YEAR-OLD man has been found guilty on 30 charges of the indecent assault of two of his daughters, and the rape of one of them in their home in Dublin 45 years ago.

The majority 10-2 verdict was delivered at the Central Criminal Court in Tralee after more than a day of deliberations and a trial which had gone into its second week.

The man, who required medical attention a number of times during the eight days of proceedings, had vehemently denied all charges when arraigned. In evidence, he said only a savage would rape a child and he was not a savage.

Initially there were three charges of rape and six counts of indecent assault in the case of one daughter at the family home s between April 1965 and the end of 1970.

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However, on the fifth day of the trial, after an application by defence counsel Paul Greene SC, Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy withdrew one count of rape from the jury and directed it to bring in a not guilty verdict in that one rape count.

The man also denied 24 counts of indecent assault against a second older daughter between August 1964 and August 1972.

The jury yesterday found him guilty on all 32 counts.

The rape victim told the court how her father would bring her upstairs into his bed, having sent the others to the cinema. She recalled passing out on two occasions during the two counts of rape she alleged. She was seven or eight.

She also told how she and her sisters slept in one double bed and her father would come home drunk and select the child nearest the bedroom door and interfere with her.

The girls would take turns sleeping next to the door.

The girls never had any underwear, one of the sisters said, and her father left them and their mother impoverished to set up home with another woman. Her mother had had a nervous breakdown, she learned in later years.

When her father left, her brothers began sexually assaulting her. The woman said the brothers had learned it from her father.

Sentencing has been adjourned to June 28th in Dublin.

The man has been asked to surrender his passport and sign on at Tralee Garda station three times a week.