Man ‘lost control of moral compass’ when he raped nephews

A Galway man who “completely lost control of his moral compass” and raped two of his nephews when they stayed at his mother’s house has been jailed for 12 years.

The 59-year-old, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his victims, pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to raping and sexually assaulting his nephews on dates between 1991 and 1997. He has no previous convictions.

Mr Justice Michael White said the abuse was a “horrific breach of trust” and that it had taken great courage for his victims to come forward. He also noted that the man had lived an isolated life, had been abused as a child and suffered from depression and alcoholism. Mr Justice White backdated the sentence to last December, when the man went into custody.

Weekly rape

At an earlier sentence hearing a local detective garda told Tara Burns SC, prosecuting, that one of the boys was anally raped at least once a week while staying in the house, in Galway, between October 1995 and June 1997, when he was 15 to 17 years old.

The court heard the man would enter the spare room where the boy was sleeping and rape the boy before returning to his own bedroom.

The boy’s brother stayed at the house less frequently between April 1991 and December 1993, when he was 13 to 16 years old. The first time he was told to sleep in the man’s bed, the man, smelling of alcohol, got into the bed with him and began groping the boy’s genitals. He was then raped from behind. On subsequent nights he would sleep in another bed in the same room or hide from the man, to try to avoid the attacks. He was given money after each assault and told, “That was for staying in Granny’s house.”

The man told both boys not to tell anyone what had happened.

Loss of self-respect

In a victim-impact statement one of the young men said he lost his self-respect for years after the abuse. “I would feel lost and hopeless very often,” he said, adding that he still had dreams in which his uncle was after him but that since making the complaint he was able to get away.

The second victim said in his statement that the abuse had “impacted every part of his life” and he felt he had been robbed of his childhood.

John Jordan SC, defending, said the accused man apologised unreservedly and that he “didn’t set out to do harm”. He said the man had been “utterly rudderless and had completely lost control of his moral compass”.