Man cannot be convicted of rape as he was 12 at time, court hears

A man who as a 12-year-old repeatedly raped his sister has been jailed for a year because the law at the time stated that a child under 14 years of age cannot be guilty of rape.

Michael Hughes (57) of Cluain Beag, Nobber, Co Meath had pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court last December to four counts of rape and four counts of indecent assault on dates between December 1971 and October 1973 at the family home they shared in Dublin.

His sister, Anne Marie Powney, who waived her right to anonymity, was aged between four and six at the time.

Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy said at a hearing last January that the legislation that existed at the time of the offence meant that Hughes could not be convicted of rape as he was under the age of 14.

He allowed for the rape pleas to be set aside and sentenced him on Monday on the four remaining indecent assault charges.

Mr Justice McCarthy said it was one of the “most harrowing” victim impact reports he had ever read.

“Sadly up to now she has not managed to recover from what happened her as a child and she still suffers,” the judge said. He said the woman lived in constant fear every day that Hughes would get her.

Maximum sentence

The judge said that the court could also only impose a maximum sentence of two years for the offences of indecent assault. He took into account Hughes’s admissions of guilt and the fact that he was a child at the time before he jailed him for a year.

“I don’t think he was not so young as to appreciate the seriousness of what he was doing,” Mr Justice McCarthy said.

The now 49-year-old woman read from her victim impact report at the sentence hearing last December and said that she didn’t feel like she had her “own identity because the abuse is so ingrained in me”.

“I’ve been in prison in my own body and mind. I can never get those years back,” the woman said, adding that her brother “walks around free”.

She said she would never be able to forget the horrors of the abuse and she lived in constant fear every day that Hughes would get her.

“I’ve never know what a normal life is and never will,” the woman said.

Tara Burns SC, prosecuting, told the court Hughes had pleaded guilty to sample counts and said the abuse occurred at least two or three times per week.