A MAN who bribed and threatened his teenage stepdaughter into complying with his sexual demands and drove her to attempt suicide has been jailed for five years by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Garda Mary Fitzpatrick said when the girl was aged between 14 and 15, the defendant would withhold money for things like clothes and discos until she accepted his sexual advances.
On one occasion he offered her £100 for sexual intercourse and when she refused threatened to tell her mother she was a prostitute.
He also threatened to throw her out of the house and she was terrified. Following a failed suicide attempt she contacted gardai.
Garda Fitzpatrick told Ms Una McGurk, prosecuting, that the defendant had an earlier 1988 District Court conviction for indecently assaulting the girl.
He had been given a six-month suspended sentence on the basis that he would stay away from her family and attend counselling.
However, he used a false address to disguise the fact he was continuing to live with the victim's mother. He recommenced abusing the girl within a year and used bribes, violence and threats to get her to submit.
The 40-year-old man pleaded guilty to two charges of in decently assaulting the girl and one charge of sexually assaulting her in Dublin from 1988 to 1991. She is now aged 24.
Counsel said the system had failed both the defendant and the victim, claiming that if there had been intervention after 1988 he might not have come before the court again.
The £100 bribe offer was the catalyst for her to say "enough is enough" and to complain to gardai. The defendant had not abused her since 1991, said Mr Dwyer.