Ex-soldier faces sentence for reign of sex abuse

A CORK man who raped his partner’s adolescent daughter and sexually abused her younger sister as well as his own daughter will be sentenced today.

The reign of abuse at the hands of the former soldier spanned a total of 12 years, between 1990 and 2002.

At one stage the man tried to abuse one of his partner’s daughters when she was 16 and nearly seven months’ pregnant. Three weeks after she gave birth he caught her by the throat and pinned her against the wall.

The man, aged in his mid-50s, has pleaded guilty to 10 sample counts at the Central Criminal Court.

He “apologised unreservedly” yesterday and said he “must pay the penalty” for his actions.

Detective Sergeant Sean Stack told the court the defendant started sexually assaulting his own daughter when she was 13 and abused her between December 1990 and September 1993.

His marriage broke up and he started a relationship with another woman and moved into her house in 1995.

Within months he started abusing one of her daughters, who was aged just 10. The abuse continued between April 1995 and March 1998.

In January 1998 he abused her younger sister, who was 11 at the time. That abuse continued until January 2002.

In her victim impact statement, his daughter called him a “monster”.

She said when she was 13 she was “innocent and carefree”, with not a worry.

“One night all that innocence and the right to be a child was taken away by my father. From then on my childhood stopped.”

In her statement, read to the court by prosecuting counsel Ronan Kennedy BL, she said: “I just wanted to curl up and die.” She said that would be easier than be sexually abused.

She said she used to be ashamed, but said “why should I?”. She said it was the perpetrator that should be ashamed. She said it was “never too late” for people abused to speak out.

Det Sgt Stack said the first daughter of his partner he abused said the abuse reached the stage where it was happening “almost every night” until she was 14.

At one stage he raped her. She said she was “bawling” and punching and scratching at him to stop. He told her “I’m nearly finished”.

When she was heavily pregnant, by another man, he again tried to abuse her.

In her victim impact statement, the woman said she was a “very sad girl growing up” and that she found it very difficult to trust men.

Her sister said in her statement said she had seen the man as a “father figure” and she had called him “dad”.

She said she suffered nightmares until last year.

Defence counsel Patrick MacEntee SC said his client gone to a garda station and confessed before there were any complaints, adding his client was “ashamed of himself”.