Dundalk court: Man who fathered a child with his estranged daughter jailed

A convicted rapist who fathered a son with his estranged daughter after she met him in her late teens, was last week jailed for nine years at Dundalk Circuit Court.

Judge Patrick Quinn was told the 50 year old County Louth man, who can’t be named for legal reasons, does not accept the verdict of the jury, who convicted him of incest last February following a five day trial.

The court heard the grandmother of the child contacted gardaí in 2015 after discovering her daughter was pregnant.

Her daughter was in her late teens when she met her estranged father through a relative.

Dundalk woman assaulted a female in a local pharmacy, court heard

Community service for assault at house party in Dundalk

The court was told the woman wasn’t keen on the contact taking place and her daughter ultimately left the family home and moved into an apartment with her father.

The alleged victim met gardai by arrangement and vigorously denied that her dad had fathered her then unborn child but consented to the baby’s DNA being taken when the time arose.

The defendant also allowed his DNA to be taken twice as part of the investigation.

The court heard it was 23 million times more likely that the boy was the son of the defendant and his daughter, than being the woman’s son with any other male.

Apart from cooperating in providing DNA evidence, the victim’s cooperation with the garda investigation was minimal and she did not give a victim impact statement.

Judge Quinn heard the 50 year old was jailed by the Central Criminal Court for six years in 1996 for rape and for three and a half years by Dundalk Circuit Court in 2003 for sexual assault.

He also had previous historic convictions for larceny and burglary.

The Senior Defence counsel told Judge Quinn her client, who appeared by videolink, was not involved in the victim’s upbringing and does not accept the verdict of the jury.

The barrister asked the court to consider that the DNA evidence provided by her client was fundamentally the only evidence of paternity.

Judge Quinn imposed a 10 year sentence with the final year suspended for 10 years, on condition that the defendant has no contact with his daughter during that period.