A Co Laois man was last night sentenced to five years in jail for sexually abusing a woman when she was a child in the 1970s.
Edward Delaney, with an address at O'Malley Park in Limerick, was convicted before the summer of 16 counts of indecent assault and 16 counts of unlawful carnal knowledge under Sections One and Six of the 1935 Criminal Justice Act.
Sentencing Delaney, Judge Anthony P. Kennedy said in the Circuit Court in Portlaoise that the victim in the case had lost her childhood because of the abuse. "It took skilled planning and brazen execution to carry out these degrading offences, you caused the victim shame, guilt and self blame," said the judge.
He said Delaney had trespassed the woman's bodily integrity, and as a result she lost her normal sexual development.
"His denial in the face of the jury's verdict compounds this," he said, and added to his "own sexual perverted pleasure".
In her original evidence, the woman told the court the man used to pick her up from school and abuse her in the car on the way home.
The abuse lasted from 1972 to 1977 but the woman did not report the assaults until 1990.
Delaney initially made a full confession to gardaí, but later retracted it, claiming he had made it under duress.