Man (62) sentenced to seven years for abusing three neighbours

A SIXTY-two-year-old father of four was sentenced to seven years in jail last week after he was found guilty of a number of charges of sexual assault against three of his young neighbours.

The man, who cannot be named in order to protect the identity of his victims, pleaded not guilty to over 20 charges of indecent assault, but was found guilty by a jury following a trial earlier this month in Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court.

The three victims of the abuse were daughters of the accused man’s first cousin and the abuse took place at various times between 1976 and 1994.

During sentencing, Judge Rory McCabe described the abuse as ‘depraved and brazen’ and it was clear there was an element of grooming in his actions.

The abuse came to light after one of the sisters approached a counsellor and the Rape Crisis Centre, and after speaking to her siblings, discovered that two other sisters were also abused. The vast majority of the charges related to one sister who was the second oldest in a family of nine.

She told the trial that the abuse was almost routine and occurred mostly on her summer holidays between the ages of 12 and 16. The court heard that the victim was forced to masturbate the defendant. Some incidents occurred in the defendant’s parlour while another occurred when they were on a tractor bringing home silage, at her home when her family were at Mass, and the abuse even continued after he was married.

In a victim impact statement, she stated that the man was a trusted family friend and she was just a child when the abuse occurred. She was shocked and confused. She said she did not tell anyone as she felt no one would believe her.

As a result of the abuse, she suffered from low self esteem and turned to alcohol as a way of escaping. She also claimed that the abuse had robbed her of a family of her own, as she found it difficult to be intimate with men.

Upsetting

She said she came forward to gardaí in 2015 and was waiting two years for justice and found the cross examination very upsetting and understood why so few survivors ‘go down this route’.

Another sister described how she was in the farm shed when the neighbour grabbed her from behind and put his finger inside her vagina. She said she was still in primary school at the time and she slapped him across the face and he never did it again.

The third sister said the incident occurred in 1994 when she was 12-years-old and they were at a family function.  She said the accused man grabbed her as she came from the toilet and put his hand up her skirt.

Mr Giollaíosa Ó Lideadha, senior counsel for the accused, said his client maintained his innocence and did not accept the verdict of the jury. He said he was a married father of four grown up children, who had supported him through the trial.

In sentencing, Judge McCabe said the decree of premeditation involving the first sister was extreme and she was deluded into believing she was in a relationship with the accused man. He said he was concerned regarding the lack of remorse and he still posed a risk to the public.

Judge McCabe said it was open to him to run all the sentences consecutively but he decided against this and as a result the accused will serve a seven year sentence.