BREAKING: Man jailed for 11 years for the rape and sexual assault of five of his sisters

A man who began indecently assaulting and raping his five sisters when he was aged ten has been jailed for 11 years.

The 50-year-old man had pleaded not guilty to 27 charges involving rape, indecent assault and sexual assault of his five sisters on dates between 1982 and 2001.

The man was convicted by a Central Criminal Court jury last February on 25 out of 27 charges against him, including eight rape charges, five indecent assault and 12 sexual assault.

Four of the five women wanted their brother to be identified in reporting of the case but as naming him would identify the fifth sister, he cannot be named to protect her anonymity.

The court heard that the man's father was convicted of abuse and, as a parent, had been involved in meting out "extreme violence" within his family.

One of the woman stated in her victim impact statement that she had been abused by her father and then by her brother who "tried to take over" from what the father had been doing.

An investigating garda told a previous sentence hearing earlier this month that the assaults started when the women were as young as seven and continued into their teens and early adulthood.

The crimes were committed in the midlands, in a house, in caravans, horse sheds, and in the open countryside.

The attacks included one on a sister on either her sixth or seventh birthday when she and her sibling were taking part in a local festival. The woman recalled in her victim impact statement how she was "all excited" at getting dressed up and participating in the festival.

On the way home with her brother, they stopped at a local shop. The shopkeeper admired her costume and said her brother was "a great man for looking after her". Further along the route on the way home, the same brother sexually assaulted her.

The woman said she had "no understanding" of what was being done to her. Another sister was assaulted on her birthday while yet another was assaulted on her Confirmation day.

A sister who complained to her mother was then beaten by her. Another was told by her brother that if she said anything, he would drown her.

The case came to light in 2016 when the five sisters made allegations of rape and sexual assault by their brother.

The family were members of the Travelling community and were involved in keeping horses and goats. During the period when the crimes were committed, the family became settled.

Despite the jury conviction, the court was told the man does not accept the verdict and maintains that he is the victim of an alleged dispute with another Traveller family, as well as collusion between his sisters and the fabrication of evidence.

Mr Justice Paul Burns said the offence represented “a breach of normal trust that should be expected between siblings” and noted that the assaults were exasperated by the man threatening his sisters and on occasion wiping himself in their clothes following the attacks.

The judge noted the “profound effect” the crimes had on the women.

“They had their childhoods taken away from them,” Mr Justice Burns said before he added that they have suffered from stress, anxiety and depression and some had considered suicide.

“I sympathise with each of the victims,” the judge said, adding that their victim impact statements outlined how the abuse has affected their relationships with their own families.

Mr Justice Burns said it was a complicated sentence as there were different maximum penalties available to the court, depending on when the offence was committed and, in some cases, a lesser maximum sentence was applied for a more serious assault.

He accepted that the man’s father had also sexually abused the children and as such he was “lacking moral guidance”.

Mr Justice Burns imposed various different sentences, the longest of which was a 12-year term for rape with the final 12 months suspended on the condition that he engage with the Probation Service for three years. 

This rape was committed when the man was 21-years-old and therefore the only rape offence that was carried out while the man was an adult.  The sentences are all to run concurrently.

The judge said that the man was to be registered as a sex offender. He said that as he will be under the supervision of the Probation Service for three years on his release from prison, there is no need for a post release supervision order.

The investigating garda told John Byrne SC, prosecuting, that the offences included multiple separate incidents in which the man molested his sisters with his hands, arousing himself and ejaculating with and without penetration.

After several such assaults, he said to one of his sisters that if she told anyone, no one would believe them, they would be beaten and he would also drown them in a river.

One sister told the jury that when she told her mother what her brother had done, her mother beat her with a length of gas tubing that was inside the caravan.

One incident of rape involved the man, then aged 10 or 12, lifting a seven- or eight-year-old sister onto a pallet on a horse trough so that he could assault her.

After several incidents, the man would wipe himself clean on his sisters’ clothes, or by using leaves and clumps of grass, before walking away, sometimes without saying anything.

During one period between 1990 and 1992 the man raped one of his sisters "seven or eight times a week", the court heard.

In May 1992, when the man was aged 20, he raped one of his sisters on the day of her Confirmation. Their mother later told the girl to change out of her good clothes.

When she went into the caravan to do this, her brother raped her again, cleaned himself on her fresh clothes, which she then had to wear.

In another incident, he sexually assaulted one of his sisters on her sixth birthday when he was aged 18 or 19.

In victim impact statements read to the court by Mr Byrne, one sister said she had been abused by her father and then by her brother who "tried to take over" from what the father had been doing, she said.

She thought for a time that the only way to get these events out of her head was to end her own life. She felt guilt when she learnt that her sisters had been assaulted and raped by her brother as well.

"I would have done everything in my power to protect them, but I had no one to turn to," she said in her statement.

Another sister said in her statement: "I have never known what it was like to be a child. . . my brother took that all away from me".

She had tried to put out of her mind what had happened but: "It is like putting a wash into the machine and watching it go around and around."

She said that the jury's verdict was "like someone was standing up for me. . . that's not something I have felt very often in my life".

A third sister, said the assaults had destroyed her, her children and her partner. She suffered with her mental health and could stay awake for three or four days "just because I'm afraid to sleep".

She hears voices, she said, and could still smell her brother.

"The abuse has robbed me of everything . . . He took everything. I have nothing left. . . I am 40 next birthday and I can still smell him."

A fourth sister said she had lost her own children trying to save herself. Of her nine children, only two were close to her.

"When I look in the mirror, I see a horrible ugly person," she said in her statement.

The fifth sister said that initially, she did not know that what was being done to her was wrong until she was aged 11 or 12. "I knew straight away it was wrong," she said in her statement.

She suffers anxiety and depression. "It is something I have never been able to get over or past," she said. After the guilty verdicts, her brother had posted on Facebook, from the court that he was innocent, the court heard.

"He always wants the last word," she said.

The court heard the man has 15 previous convictions, all but one for traffic offences and none relevant to the case.

Defending barrister Michael Bowman, SC, said the man was a father of 10 children of his own and was estranged from his wife. He came from "an extraordinarily dysfunctional family environment" involving sexual abuse and abuse of alcohol.