A Dublin woman saved her father from jail for sexually abusing her nine-year-old daughter after telling a judge she just wanted him to apologise. The 69-year-old north Dublin man admitted four counts of indecent assault against his granddaughter during summer 1991.
The girl's mother told the court she "did not want blood" but wanted her father to apologise and to see what he did was wrong. The man and his daughter then talked quietly in the court before kissing and shaking hands.
Judge Gerard Haughton was told the man did not now have any contact with his grand-daughter or any other children. But he said the case involved an abuse of the trust a child should have in their parents or grand-parents and would have sent the man to jail were it not for the intervention of the mother.
He sentenced the man to nine months' imprisonment, which he suspended provided the man entered a £1,000 bond to be of good behaviour for three years.