This article contains references to sexual abuse and sexual assault. Reader discretion is advised.
By Sonya McLean
A man who sexually assaulted his stepdaughter while she was a child and 16 years later as she shared a bed with her young daughter has been jailed for seven years.
The court heard that the victim disclosed the first incident of abuse when she was a child but the case did not progress any further. At that time, the man was her mother’s boyfriend. Her mother later went on to marry the accused.
He sexually assaulted her a second time, when she was 27-years-old and sharing a bed with her young daughter.
The 69-year-old man had denied the charges but was convicted by a Dublin Circuit Criminal Court jury following a trial last July. He does not accept the verdicts of the jury.
He had pleaded not guilty to two charges of sexual assault on dates between December 2002 and December 2004 and in April 2020. Both incidents occurred in their family homes in Dublin.
The first incident involved the man touching the child’s vagina inside her underwear. In the second incident he digitally penetrated her vagina while she was sharing a bed with her young daughter.
Sentencing the man, Judge Elma Sheahan noted from the victim impact statement that the woman has suffered “deep upset and trauma” which had been exasperated by the fact that she had reported the first incident of sexual assault but was not believed.
Judge Sheahan noted that the impact of the earlier abuse had led to “excessive alcohol consumption” during her adolescence which she said was “exasperated by the repeated offending” when she was an adult.
The judge said the aggravating features in the case included the position the man held in the victim’s life at the time and the presence of her child in the bed with her during the second assault.
Judge Sheahan noted testimonials handed in on the man’s behalf, including from his children and work colleagues who described him as kind. She also referred to the fact that he had attended Alcoholics Anonymous to deal with his own substance abuse.
She also accepted that the man’s first experience of prison was when he was remanded in custody following conviction at trial last July. She said that would be a particularly difficult experience especially for a man of his age.
Judge Sheahan noted that the victim had “lost much in her life” due to her step-father’s behaviour – “most importantly her peace of mind and her relationship with her own mother”.
She said the first offence warranted a headline sentence of five years which she reduced to four years having taken into account the mitigation in the case. She imposed a three year term for the second offence.
Judge Sheahan said the fact that the man sexually abused the victim a second time, after she had been so significantly impacted by the first incident, warranted the imposition of a consecutive sentence and therefore jailed the man for seven years.
She said because the man has not accepted the verdict of the jury or shown any insight into his offending, she did not think it was appropriate to suspend any of the sentence.
Judge Sheahan said she hopes the woman can now look forward to her future.