Father who carried out abuse of four daughters over decade and a half is jailed for seventeen-and-a-half years
Judge O’Connor said that the campaign of sexual abuse the defendant, who is now in his late 40s, carried out on his four children was relentless. The first victim said that the abuse took place on a daily basis – sometimes twice or three times in a day.
An horrific case of a man sexually abusing his own four daughters over a total period of more than 15 years resulted in him being jailed today for seventeen-and-a-half years at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the case was the first victim telling the child and family agency Tusla about the abuse back in 2012 only for this victim to have to apologise to her father and say she made it up. He then turned around to his wife and said, “I told you. I knew it.” Ms Justice Karen O’Connor said, “A very disturbing aspect of the case was that she was forced to apologise to her father … This affected her most, mentally, that she had to apologise.
“And the sexual assaults continued against her and her three sisters and it went on for nine years after this child was forced to apologise because she did not want to cause upset in her family.” It was through a friend of the first victim that Tusla came to be alerted as far back as 14 years ago and the victim was taken out of her classroom to meet a social worker, to whom she first confirmed the abuse.
But later that day at home she heard her mother talking to her father by phone and her father replying, “You will find me at the end of a rope, this will finish me.”
Because of this she told her mother she had made it up. This then resulted in her being told to apologise to her father.
Judge O’Connor said that the campaign of sexual abuse the defendant, who is now in his late 40s, carried out on his four children was relentless. The first victim said that the abuse took place on a daily basis – sometimes twice or three times in a day.
It was only in August this year that he pleaded guilty to sample counts on the 128-count indictment which included counts of sexual assault, rape, attempted rape and attempted sexual assault against four victims when they were all children on dates from 2005 to 2021.
One of the daughters described home as a house of horror. Another victim described it as hell. Judge O’Connor said she was struck by the extraordinary courage and integrity of the four sisters who tried to protect each other from the campaign of abuse by their father.
There is a legal prohibition on identification of the parties to this case.
Defence senior counsel Jane Hyland said the defendant instructed her to apologise to his daughters on his behalf. Judge O’Connor said she would not comment on the genuineness of this apology and that this was a matter for the victims to say.
The judge said in a review of the evidence in the case that the accused would gesture or nod to one of his daughters to leave the room to go to another room in the house where he would carry out the sexual abuse. In the case of his eldest child it went on against her from the age of seven to 14, at the family home, his workplace and grandparents’ homes. On one occasion when he indicated that he was going to sexually assault her at her great grandmother’s home, she turned to him and said, “Really, Dad?” On another occasion, her mother was downstairs at the family home and her father said he would be quick.
Another victim pretended to be asleep in bed to avoid sexual abuse by her father but he raped her as she pretended to sleep. She said he carried out threats and blackmail that she would not be allowed to go to various events if she was not compliant. She recalled her father looking at her through the bathroom keyhole.
One of the two younger victims said her father told her on one occasion, “I will take two seconds, I will give you money.” One of the younger daughters was also traumatised by seeing her father sexually abusing an older sister.
The judge said it would be difficult to imagine a more fundamental breach of trust by a father with a role to protect. He destroyed trust by abusing them in a horrific way. It will live with them for the rest of their lives.
“It continued for a 16-year period – a cold, determined campaign of abuse in the family home where they should have felt secure and protected. One of the girls described home as a place of horror. Another said she realised no room was save… The frequency was relentless, the behaviour was degrading and humiliating how he treated these victims,” Judge O’Connor said.
Each of the victims was concerned at various times that their sisters would not also be sexually assaulted also and it was not until much later that they realised that all of them were being abused in the same way by their father.
One of them said she could cry at any casual reference a friend might make to loving their dad, and she was left to wonder what it would be like to have a father who did not hate her and sexually abuse her. “I don’t think any child could be prepared for the father to be the abuser.” On one occasion she was in hospital and her mother was with her and she recalls feeling sick with worry about her three sisters being left alone at home that night with their father.
“My innocence was stolen from me. I don’t think I ever had a chance to live my life to the full. I felt so hated by my own father, “ she said.
One of his sisters recalled all the false promises her father made to her that this would be the last time he would abuse her but she said he kept abusing her until he had taken “every shred of dignity” from her.
Another injured party said, “Every time he touched me I wished I could disappear.” In the last of the four victim impact statements, the injured party asked, “What have we done to deserve this?
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