By Niamh O’Donoghue
A man who sexually assaulted his partner’s 13-year-old granddaughter while two other children were in the room, has been jailed for a year.
The man (64), who cannot be named to protect the identity of the victim, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to sexually assaulting the girl on May 21, 2023.
The court heard the man was going out with the girl’s grandmother and visited the child’s house every Sunday.
A local garda told the court the girl said she sat on the man’s lap and he was rubbing her bum then put his hand up her shorts and pinched her vagina.
Her mother was very upset and angry and reported it to the gardai.
When interviewed the man admitted rubbing her bum but denied touching her vagina.
He emphatically denied touching her vagina until the end of the interview, admitting that she gave him a hug and that’s when he did it.
The court heard he has four previous convictions.
The investigating garda agreed with Luigi Rea BL, defending, that these offences were not of the same nature.
”I’m sick for what I did”, the man told gardai and “he also said he wasn’t sexually turned on or aroused,” Mr Rea said.
The garda agreed with Mr Rea that it was “a very serious and isolated incident.”
In mitigation, Mr Rea said there was a report before the court placed the man at very low risk of reoffending.
He said his client was now “totally isolated” and “a pariah” and the relationship with the girl’s grandmother was now over.
Judge Martin Nolan said the mitigating factors were the guilty plea, his remorse and the contents of the report.
However, the judge said: “It’s a sexual assault on a child”. “This child trusted him and he betrayed that trust,” said Judge Nolan before jailing him for a year.