Serial child abuser subjected younger cousin to relentless and constant abuse for years, court hears

By Declan Brennan

A serial child abuser subjected his younger cousin to relentless and constant abuse for four years, a court has heard.

The 61-year-old man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his victim, was convicted after a trial at the Central Criminal Court last May of seven counts of rape and six counts of indecent assault at  his flat in Dublin city in the nineties.

The boy was aged from ten when the abuse began in 1991.

The attacks involved oral and anal rapes and continued until 1997 when the victim told the man to stop.

At a sentence hearing yesterday Eileen O’Leary SC, prosecuting, told the court that the victim went to gardai as an adult and told them that his older cousin had carried out “relentless and constant” sexual assaults on him between 1991 and 1997, with a break of three years when the victim lived away from the defendant.

“He was raped anally maybe 50 times a year,” counsel said.

She said the victim’s parents were alcoholics and he had a fractured home life which was characterised by neglect with all of the man’s siblings going into care at one stage.

The victim’s cousin would give the victim money and tell him he was his best friend and that the abuse was “our secret and to tell nobody”.

The victim later told gardai that “he didn’t know any better and just went along with it”.

The man denies the offending.

He is already serving a seven year prison term, imposed in June 2020, for the multiple sexual assaults on four girls at his flat in Dublin on dates beginning in May 1994 and ending in February 2001.

Ms O’Leary told the sentence hearing on Monday morning that the victim, who is now in his 40s, still found it difficult to talk about the abuse.

He did not complete a victim impact statement.

Counsel said that the position of the Director of Public Prosecutions was that the case lay in the more serious range of rape cases, given the youth of the victim, the familial relationship and breach of trust, and the multiple offending. She also told the court that the defendant has shown no remorse for his offending.

Justice Eileen Creedon adjourned sentencing to October 24 next.