McGinley only served five years

SIMON MCGINLEY was let out of jail in 2003 after serving just five years for the rape of the 13-year-old girl whose life was left in tatters after the attack.

Originally sentenced to 12 years with four years suspended, he was let out early after impressing prison authorities with his enthusiasm for attending the sex offenders’ programme aimed at rehabilitating men like him.

But in 2008, he forced his way into the home of an 86-year-old woman in the early hours of the morning and raped her repeatedly. Her daughter described in court how her independent, active mother who had loved life had been reduced to a shadow of her former self by the attack.

She could no longer live alone or drive her car and she did not care about her garden or the charity work and travel that had been so important to her only a year earlier.

McGinley, 35, originally from Dundalk with an address at Latlorcan Court, Monaghan, was found guilty by a jury in the Central Criminal Court in May.

At his sentencing hearing this week, Mr Justice George Birmingham said the case was “as bad as it gets“.

He sentenced McGinley to 21 years in prison.