A MAN who sexually abused his four daughters has been released from prison after a businessman entered into a £1,000 bond to supervise him.
Mr Justice Flood sentenced the 42 year old man at the Central Criminal Court in 1994 to 12 concurrent terms of five years.
At a case review yesterday he said that before releasing such an offender he normally required a bondsperson who would "literally pull the alarm cord" if something went wrong.
When the businessman entered the £1,000 bond, Mr Justice Flood warned him he would lose tape money if he did not report any moderately serious" breach by the defendant.
The businessman told Mr Gregory Murphy SC, defending, he would employ the defendant, give him accommodation and monitor his conduct for 18 months. The defendant undertook to keep the peace and to contact his family only through the Garda.
Mr Justice Flood imposed the 12 concurrent sentences of five years on October 11th, 1994, after the man admitted committing sexual offences against his four daughters from 1988 to 1993. He had pleaded guilty to five charges of indecent assault and five of sexual assault on his daughters when they were aged 10 to 17. He also pleaded guilty to attempted sexual intercourse on his fourth and youngest daughter in 1992 and again in 1993 when she was 14 years and 15 years.
Mr Justice Flood said in 1994 that very serious psychological damage had been caused to the daughters. While he had to emphasise the gravity of the offences, he had to balance this with a ray of hope for the man by reviewing the sentences after two years.
Mr Justice Flood had heard the defendant had been discharged from the Army after two suicide attempts, once shooting himself in the chest. The sex assaults began after he gave up drinking and joined Alcoholics Anonymous.
The court had been told previously that staff at the Central Mental Hospital considered the man to be one of its most successful patients. He had taken part in a course for incest offenders.
A Garda sergeant in the defendant's home town in the midlands had told prosecution counsel, Mr Joseph Mathews SC, that the case came to light when one of the girls confided in her mother. The man's wife then asked her other daughters if their father had abused them and brought the matter to a local curate.
The defendant made a detailed statement to gardai but denied he had ever penetrated his daughters.