A ROSCOMMON man who raped a babysitter over two decades ago has been jailed for 11 years.
John Gerard Regan (59), of Cloonfad, Ballyhaunis, was found guilty last February by a jury at the Central Criminal Court of raping the now 37-year-old woman on a date in 1982 and of three charges of indecently assaulting her on dates between 1979 and 1984.
The victim said she wanted Regan named in media reports of the case.
Mr Justice Kevin O'Higgins directed that Regan's name be placed on the register of sex offenders.
The jury returned its 11-1 majority verdicts on day five of the trial, having deliberated for over four hours and after spending one night in a hotel.
Regan had pleaded not guilty at the start of his trial to one charge of raping the woman and to 29 charges of indecent assault.
The judge withdrew 26 of the charges from the jury at the trial.
Regan said in evidence in his own defence that the allegations against him were untrue and claimed the offences never happened.
"I never went near her," he said.
Det Sgt John Hynes told prosecuting counsel Vincent Heneghan (with Anthony Sammon SC), that when interviewed on March 15th, 2005, Regan told gardaí he had nothing to be remorseful for when they suggested "you could get it off your chest" by admitting the victim's claims.
"If I done all those things you have written down from her, I would be remorseful," Regan told gardaí.
Det Sgt Hynes told Mr Sammon that Regan bought a pub with his brother-in-law after he returned to Roscommon from working in England in the 1970s.
Sgt Hynes told the court the victim had said the pub was the site of the first sexual assault, when she was aged seven.
He said the victim had described how Regan lifted her up on to a large crate in the pub backyard, pulled down her underwear and sexually assaulted her.
The victim said she was sleeping in Regan's daughter's bed when she woke to find him rubbing her and that he beckoned her to come into another room.
She told Mr Sammon that following the initial rape, he sexually assaulted her several other times when she was babysitting.
The victim also described numerous incidents in which Regan would pull up beside her in his car and take her to isolated bogland where he would sexually assault her.
She rejected a suggestion by defence counsel, Martin Giblin SC (with Francis Comerford), that prior to her making the allegations to gardaí, she had borne a grudge against Regan's daughter because she believed she had called social services with concerns about the welfare of her child.
She told Mr Giblin she hadn't been visited by social services and that in fact it was she who went to them.
She further denied that after she was allegedly reported to social services, she approached Regan's daughter in a local pub and said: "Don't you be talking about me."
Sentencing Regan, Mr Justice O'Higgins told him that his victim was "a person of considerable courage who, with the help of her husband, is trying to get on with her life, which is not easy given the scars of your actions".