A former AIB bank porter who raped the manager's daughter 20 years ago has been jailed for a total of seven years by Mr Justice O'Sullivan at the Central Criminal Court. The girl was between eight and 11 years of age when abused.
John Cregan (54), a father of three, from Croom, Co Limerick, was convicted last October on six charges of raping the now 30year-old married woman, eight charges of unlawful carnal knowledge and one of indecently assaulting her on dates from 1979 to 1982.
Cregan was also jailed for one year and 11 months on four charges of indecently assaulting a now 33-year-old married woman from the same village on dates in 1974 and 1975. She was aged eight to nine years. The sentences are to run concurrently and date from last October.
Mr Justice O'Sullivan noted the victims wanted Cregan named and said he had no jurisdiction to make an order prohibiting that. He refused leave to appeal.
One of the victims told Mr Justice O'Sullivan she was "very glad that a real threat to all children is being removed from society". She said she wanted to appeal to all victims of child sexual abuse to come forward. She blamed the abuse for the "very disturbed life" she lived until she reported it.
She had suffered serious bouts of depression and had also drank to excess. Her condition also led to the break-up of a seven-year relationship. "I found it difficult to cope and thought I was going out of my mind at one stage."
The woman told Mr Justice O'Sullivan she had found it "insulting and hurtful" to listen to Cregan's wife tell the court her husband could not have committed the offences, after he had pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting her.
She was also concerned that Cregan had not offered an apology or expressed one word of remorse for what he had done to her. "He ruined my life and I couldn't begin to express the depth of the horror he put me through", she said.