This article contains references to domestic abuse which some readers may find distressing.
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By Declan Brennan and Sonya McLean
A garda who verbally and emotionally abused his two daughters has been remanded on continuing bail for sentence for child cruelty and assault causing harm.
The 48-year-old man was on trial earlier this month at the Central Criminal Court, where he was acquitted of two counts of raping his wife, the mother of the two daughters.
He had also denied two counts of child cruelty and one count of assault causing harm to his now 24-year-old daughter and one count of child cruelty against his now 17-year-old daughter. He was convicted on all of these counts.
The cruelty offences against his older daughter occurred on unknown dates between 2007 and 2020 and the assault causing harm occurred on a date between late 2021 and early 2022 after she had turned 18.
The child cruelty count against his younger daughter occurred on dates between 2015 and 2024.
The defendant is a serving member of the gardai who has been on suspension since December 2024, pending the outcome of this prosecution. He has no previous convictions.
James McGowan SC, defending, said that the man now accepts the verdicts of the jury and said the conviction will “undoubtedly have a serious impact on his career”. He said his client has since done a parenting course.
Mr Justice Sean Gillane said that cases involving children should be dealt with as soon as possible but acknowledged that their father now accepts his guilt.
“That is a very important development that he now publicly acknowledges that these children were telling the truth,” the judge said before he added that he must also take into account that “the case was fully contested”.
“I am not entitled to go behind the jury’s verdict. I have to give full effect to the jury verdicts that the treatment here was intentional,” Mr Justice Gillane continued.
He remanded the man on continuing bail to October for finalisation of sentence and ordered a report from The Probation Service and a psychological report for that hearing.
On day one of the trial Dominic McGinn SC, prosecuting, told the jury that the accused was “a violent and domineering father and husband” who subjected two of his daughters to “unreasonable chastisement” for most of their childhood.
The victim impact statement of the 24-year-old woman was read into the record. She said her father’s behaviour has impacted her emotional wellbeing and mental health. She said she is left with extreme anxiety, depression, anger and grief.
“Someone who was supposed to care for me would treat me this way and continue to do so in the future. I worry about future contact especially for my younger sister. I worry that he will continue to cause us trouble and we will never have any peace,” she continued.
She said she also worries about her mother and the “blatant disrespect my father had for her – I have watched for years….her fear for our own lives and hers….all because of the actions of my father,” she said.
She said she had sacrificed years of her teenager years to help support her family but she now knows that her family can finally take the time to heal.
Her 17-year-old sister stated in her victim impact statement, also read into the record, that she found the whole process, the case going through to the courts, “mentally draining and difficult to deal with”.
“I have felt heightened insecurity throughout my teenager years,” she said, adding that she felt uncomfortable with herself and was comparing herself to friends and other people.
“I am at peace knowing that this chapter is coming to a close. I can rest assured that we are free from this situation for evermore,” she concluded in her statement.
Mr Justice Gillane noted that neither of the daughters were in court but their mother was. He asked that they both be told that their words resonated with him and he will think carefully about what they had to say.
It was accepted that the man had no previous convictions and had been suspended since December 2024 having first become a garda in 2004.
The investigating garda told Mr McGowan he could not comment on the impact the conviction would have on the man’s career but he acknowledged, that as far as he was aware, the man had an “unblemished record” in An Garda Siochana.
Mr McGowan asked the court to accept that prison would be more difficult for his client as he is a garda and he asked for the case to be adjourned to allow for the preparation of a psychological report.
His eldest daughter, now aged 24, testified that the family home had ‘an atmosphere of violence and threats” and that it felt like living in a military barracks growing up.
She said on weekends she had to get up at 10am, and if she didn’t, a jug of cold water would be thrown over her.
She said when she was 15, her father told her that her legs looked like the legs of a pool table and that was “a disgrace”. He began forcing her to go running daily, and the only way she could get out of it was by saying she was on her period.
She said that in November 2021, when her mother moved herself and the children out of the family home, they got a puppy. She said she became very fond of this dog, but that when the family went to move back in with her father a few months later, he told her he didn’t want the dog.
Becoming upset in the witness box, she testified that her father told them that “if the dog was brought up, he’d put rat poison in his food”.
She said his behaviour towards the second complainant was more “emotional manipulation”, describing him as insulting. She said he once made her eat a bucket of KFC chicken until it made her sick and was “always onto her about her weight and her appearance”.
She said in March 2021, there was an argument between her parents because her mother had “started to put her foot down”. Her father had barricaded her mother into a room, and the daughter forced open the door and wedged herself between the two of them so he didn’t attack her, she testified.
The younger daughter described an incident when she was around seven and her older brother didn’t want to eat his dinner. Her father put a stick from a tree on the table and told her and her brother to finish their food by a certain time or they’d be in trouble. She said she couldn’t remember if she was hit, but she thought her brother “most likely” was.
She said there were similar incidents involving a stick, a wooden spoon or a cooking utensil when she was between six and 10. She said: “We grew up knowing if we didn’t eat our dinner, we were going to get hit or given out to”.
She said when she was around nine, she was closing a door, and her younger sister’s hand got caught accidentally. Her father came in, put her hand in the door, telling her, “You don’t like how that feels”, before walking away.
She said her father expected her and her brother to stay outside all day during the summers when she was aged between six and 10, and would pass them food out of a window if they were hungry. She said she’d have to “beg” to be let inside to go to the bathroom.
The girl said she was “kind of chubby” at 13 or 14, and when she started to lose weight, they started talking more, but all their conversations were about weight and fitness. She said her father started pushing her to lose more weight, and she felt “obligated” so he would be happy.
She said one time in 2021, when he was tickling her, he put his hands around her neck, strangling her.