Judge rules man who raped sisters in the 1970s can't be named

Declan Brennan

A High Court judge has ordered that a man who sexually abused his two younger sisters in the 1970s cannot be identified because he was a child at the time of the offending.

The 68-year-old Donegal man was convicted after a trial at the Central Criminal Court of three counts of rape and eight counts of indecent assault of one sister and of attempted rape and indecent assault of her younger sister.

The two victims were aged 13 and 11 respectively when the man began abusing them.

John Berry, defending, told Judge Eileen Creedon that his client was aged between 14 and 16 when the offending he was convicted of began. The younger sister first went to gardaí in 2002, when the defendant was aged 45, after she learned that he had been arrested for an offence of production of child pornographic material.

She made a statement of complaint but later withdrew this, and there was no further development until 2019, when her sister went to gardaí.

In his application to prevent publication of his client’s identity, Mr Berry told the judge that he was relying on the May 2025 Supreme Court ruling in the case of DPP vs Doe.

The Supreme Court found a court could make an order granting anonymity to a defendant where it found that “blameworthy delay, resulting in the bringing of charges after the accused has reached the age of 18, has created a situation where the accused individual will be exposed to serious public odium”.

Berry said he was asserting that there was culpable delay in the prosecution of the charges against his client. Marc Murphy, prosecuting, told the court that the Director of Public Prosecutions was taking “a neutral position” with respect to the defence application but told the court that “both complainants wish to waive their anonymity”.

Judge Creedon acceded to the defence application. She made an order that he cannot be named in reporting of the case as he was a minor at the time of the offending.

The man, who pleaded not guilty to all the charges, does not accept the jury verdicts. The court heard that in the mid-1990s he told the two sisters he was sorry for the things he had done to them as children and asked them to forgive him.

The judge noted that the man “issued various threats about what would happen to her younger sister, if she told anyone,” about his abuse of her.

She said the women had delivered “very powerful victim impact statements” which outlined the physical violation of them as children and the mental trauma they have suffered as a result. She commended them for their bravery and dignity throughout the court process.

The judge said she had to make allowance for the fact that he was a child at the time of the offending and set an initial “headline” sentence of seven and half years.

She said it was a fully contested matter, which was the man’s entitlement, but she said he couldn’t benefit from the significant mitigation of pleading guilty nor has he expressed remorse. She took into account the fact that he has not offending for a long period of time, was generally co-operative with the investigation and had a difficult upbringing.

She imposed a sentence of seven years for the rape offences and attempted rape. She imposed a two year concurrent term for the sexual assault offences. The final year of the seven-year term was suspended on strict conditions.

Detective Garda Jean McDonald said the children had a difficult childhood and were in and out of care due to their parent’s personal circumstances. The court heard that these care homes were places of violence and that the defendant acted as a protector to the younger siblings while there.

The abuse began after the family moved to Dublin, and the children were spending less time in care homes. The accused would creep into the bedroom shared by his three sisters and sexually assault the older victim.

The molestation escalated to rape. The older woman told gardaí that her brother threatened her that various things might happen to the third sister, who was aged around seven to nine, if she told anyone about the abuse.

He began abusing the other sister when she was aged 11. This woman went to gardaí in 2002, and the defendant was interviewed by gardaí by voluntary appointment. He made no admissions.

In 2004, he was jailed for two years after pleading guilty to knowingly producing child pornography relating to the covert and sexualised filming of a child.

In her victim impact statement, the older sister thanked the gardaí for their professionalism, kindness and compassion throughout the investigation.

She said the effects of the abuse are lifelong and that as an adult she would wake up screaming “the devil is coming up the stairs to hurt me”. She said that when she eventually told her husband about the child abuse, he understood what was causing the night terrors.

She said that as a child, she sometimes thought the abuse was her fault, but she now knows it was nothing she did.

“It was just you being so wicked and evil. I no longer have that shame and guilt, and I give it back to you,” she said.

The younger sister told her brother that he was meant to be a source of safety and trust, but “you went from protector in the care homes to a predator at our home”.

She said she remembers the abuse beginning when she was aged as young as eight years old. She said that while he was also quite young when it started, he continued the abuse into “early adulthood” and “he knew exactly what he was doing, and continued”.

She said the abuse affected her entire life and left her with intimacy issues that took years to overcome. She said that building trust in people was one of the hardest things.

She told the court that in the mid-1990s her brother apologised and asked for forgiveness. She said when she heard he had been arrested in relation to filming a young girl, she felt betrayed and terrified that he would hurt another child.

The court heard that the man has two children with “neurological difficulties”. In an affidavit to the court, his wife told the court that she works part-time in healthcare and that the man’s incarceration will impose a difficulty on the family.