A 62-year-old man from west Co Donegal was sentenced to 12 years in jail in Donegal Circuit Court yesterday for sexual abuses committed between 1964 and 1995.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to 43 charges of sexual assault, gross indecency, buggery and indecent assault.
The incidents took place in rural areas in north-west Co Donegal and involved eight complainants aged between 10 and 14 years.
The abuse came to light after one of the victims made a statement to the Garda on February 7th, 1998.
The court heard evidence from Det Sgt Dooley that masturbation leading to buggery and oral sex was involved. In all but one of the cases, the defendant was a friend of the families of the victims and often socialised with the parents of the children he was abusing.
Many of the victims were subjected to homosexual pornographic videos at the home of the defendant before abuse began. Det Sgt Dooley said the defendant had told his victims that this was "normal" behaviour. The court heard that many of the victims now have both alcohol and relationship difficulties. Det Sgt Dooley said one victim had been abused on a weekly basis for 12 months.
Evidence was given that another victim had also been abused "every chance the defendant got". A mother of one of the victims who addressed the court said: "No one can understand and words cannot describe the hurt we feel. This man was trusted in our family home".
Describing the defendant as callous and calculating, Judge Deery sentenced him to 12 years for buggery, four years for sexual assault, four years for indecent assault and eight years for gross indecency, the sentences to run concurrently. The only mitigating factor, he said, was that the defendant had pleaded guilty.