Garda Barry Purcell, said that in his 12 years in the gardaí, he never experienced such an assault or aggression.

An “irascible” and “cross” father who regularly beat his young children with household implements, including a belt and a ladle, has been given a two-year suspended sentence.

A Tipperary man who sexually assaulted his friend as she lay asleep beside him has been jailed for three years after a judge said it would “send out the wrong signal” to impose a non-custodial sentence.

“In the letter I told him that I would never forgive him, that he took my virginity, that he robbed me of my education and almost destroyed me."

An Aer Lingus worker who helped smuggle illegal immigrants into the country has been jailed for four years.

The accused man said: “I'm fed up with this. I've said I know nothing about it.”

A woman who was repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted by her brother 35 years ago has described how he abused her with a “smirk” on his face, despite her continued pleas for him to stop.

The sisters escaped jail. “It would be unjust to imprison (Gillian Walker) and deprive her children of her care,” the judge said.

A man who raped a foreign student in the hall of her Carlow home after following her from a bus they had shared has been jailed for 10 years.

A man assaulted his adult stepson and threatened to slit his throat in a row over keeping the garden tidy, a Dublin court has heard.

A mother-of-four who stole around €100,000 in fraudulent social welfare payments has been sentenced to 10 months in prison.

The mother of a six-year-old girl who was found wandering the streets in the middle of winter in a distressed state has avoided a jail term for wilfully neglecting her children.

A man who claimed he was a boxer and who assaulted a solicitor in a completely unprovoked one-punch attack, causing catastrophic brain injuries, has been jailed for six and a half years.

A Cavan truck driver who smuggled more than €1m worth of cocaine into the country has been jailed for four years.

A school cleaner who stole over €100,000 in social welfare fraud over a 17-year period by pretending to be her sister has avoided a jail term.

The girls' mother stood by her partner and destroyed evidence after one daughter confided that she had been raped by the man.

A Cork man accused of repeatedly raping his stepdaughter over a seven-year period has been found guilty of all 92 counts against him

A Cork father-of-nine who brutally raped his teenage daughter on a weekly basis when she was aged between 16 and 17 has been jailed for nine years, writes Isabel Hayes.