A FATHER of three who repeatedly raped a young girl at a house in Co Kerry was given a 10-year jail sentence at the Central Criminal Court yesterday.
He had pleaded not guilty to eight charges of rape and sexual abuse, which took place at a house in Kerry between December 25th, 2001 and January 31st, 2002.
Defence counsel Anthony Sammon SC told Mr Justice Barry White that his client did not accept the jury’s decision.
The girl was 10 at the time. In her victim impact statement the woman, now 20, said the abuse had “ruined her life”.
She said that as a result of the attacks she had begun drinking and taking drugs at the age of 10.
“It was the only thing that would black out the pain. Now I’m an addict,” she said.
She told the court that her own child has been taken from her because of her addiction issues but that she had been starting to deal with these issues until the trial began.
“I started drinking and taking drugs again when the trial began,” she said. “I hope the nightmares will stop some day. This has ruined my life.”
Det Garda Bill Stack told Karen O’Connor, prosecuting, that the guilty man was 32 when he moved into the home of his brother’s partner, the victim’s mother.
In the five-week period while he stayed there, the man raped the girl three times, orally raped her twice, sexually assaulted her twice and on one occasion attempted anal rape.
In 2009 the victim made a complaint to gardaí, who then contacted Interpol in order to put a trace on the man.
Interpol came up with an address for him in London, where he was living with a partner and their three children, and gardaí travelled to interview the man.
The man was extradited to Ireland in September 2010 and held in custody until his trial.
Ms O’Connor said that the man had abused a position of trust while staying in the child’s home and that he had regularly “preyed” on the “vulnerable victim”.
The court heard that in one incident the man was very drunk and came into the girl’s room while she was sleeping.
He woke her up by shaking her and then lifted her over his shoulder and brought her into her baby brother’s room.
He was staggering and slurring his words and he got on top of her and raped her.
She was crying as he told her, “good girl, good girl”.
Mr Justice White said that the man had shown no signs of remorse and had put the victim through the ordeal of a trial. He said that the offences were on the upper end of the scale.
He sentenced him to 10 years for each of the rape offences and four years for the sexual assault offences, to run concurrently from the date of his arrest in September 2010.