Man jailed for a year for sexually abusing nephews

A 63-year-old man who rejected the jury’s verdict of guilty against him, for sexually assaulting two nephews in the 1990s, was jailed for one year yesterday.

He cannot be named for legal reasons.

Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin imposed a two-year sentence, with half of it suspended, on the man at Cork Circuit Criminal Court yesterday.

James O’Mahony SC, defending, said: “Apart from these cases he is an otherwise very respectable member of society. He has been devastated by the verdict, so upset he was admitted to hospital for a check-up.”

Mr O’Mahony put it to the prosecution detective: “He does not accept the jury verdict.”

The detective replied: “He has shown no remorse to the injured parties.”

The judge said there had to be a custodial sentence in a case where a jury had found him guilty of touching one boy’s penis while they were in a traffic jam and a second offence of attempting to masturbate the other child in bed.