A former soldier yesterday lost his appeal in the Court of Criminal Appeal against the imposition of eight concurrent life sentences in respect of the rape of his two daughters and four nieces.
The sentences were imposed in the Central Criminal Court in May 2004.
The indictment against the man - who is from the north-west of the country - contained 43 counts of rape, attempted rape, sexual assault and assault against six different victims, all of them children at the time. He pleaded guilty to 20 sample charges.
The offences were committed over a period of 11 years from 1986 to 1997. Giving the judgment of the CCA yesterday, Mr Justice Nial Fennelly said the nature and frequency of the offences over a long period of time took them to, or very near to, "the extremity of the scale of any criminal behaviour of this kind."
That was what had given rise to the single essential and important question which arose of the application before the CCA, namely whether the trial judge committed an error of principle in imposing eight concurrent life sentences in respect of the rape counts. It was not contested, nor could it have been that he acted correctly within the range of his discretion in imposing concurrent terms of four years imprisonment in respect of the counts for indecent and sexual assault.
The man commenced to commit the offences against his own daughters when they were as young as five or six.
One of the rapes and the single attempted rape were committed against one of his daughters.
A vital aggravating factor was that he had several opportunities to amend his behaviour, said Mr Justice Fennelly.
There was a first period of offending from early 1986 to October of that year, when one daughter complained to her mother and the father admitted responsibility. Husband and wife went to a priest, leading to an acceptance of the man's wrongful behaviour and a promise that it would not happen again. Nonetheless, he recommenced the abuse about May 1987.
A second confrontation in autumn that year led to an attendance upon a doctor and counselling from social workers. The man made a statement to gardaí accepting responsibility for the offences in November of 1987. There was no prosecution.
What was not then known was that, while admitting the abuse of his daughters, he had also been abusing several of his very young nieces over the same period.