Rapist of little girls challenges ‘excessive’ sentence

The man who repeatedly raped two girls in Athlone, Co Westmeath, and is facing the prospect of spending the rest of his days behind bars has mounted a legal challenge to his sentence.

The 30-year-old father- of-two has appealed the two life terms imposed on him by Mr Justice Paul Carney in the Central Criminal Court three weeks ago.

His solicitor, Gearóid Geraghty, confirmed an appeal had been lodged with the Court of Criminal Appeal.

The case had effectively been fast-tracked through the courts after the man acknowledged at the earliest stage that he would be pleading guilty and waived his right to the book of evidence.

He admitted all five charges — three counts of the rape, anal rape and oral rape of a 9-year-old girl and two counts of the oral and anal rape of a 6-year-old girl at an address in Athlone on September 28 last year.

At his sentencing hearing on March 3, the Central Criminal Court heard the girls had been attending a birthday party when the man lured them to a flat pretending he had a 6-year-old daughter who was too shy to come out to play.

Once inside, he violently raped the children, threatened to cut their throats, and told them he would cut their parents’ throats if they did not do as he said.

Following the attack, he ordered them to stay in the room for 20 minutes, but they managed to escape through a window. The girls’ parents raised the alarm after they had been noticed missing. They were found just as a 999 call was being made. Gardaí were called again after the girls told their parents what “a bad man” had done to them.

After his arrest near the scene, the man told gardaí he had been off his head on drink and had been taking Valium. But, he acknowledged this could not be used as an excuse.

Defence senior counsel, Martin Giblin told the sentencing hearing the offences were extremely serious — as serious as any that had come before the court — and he did not want anything he said to be understood as diminishing the seriousness of the offences or the impact on the girls and their families.

But, he told Mr Justice Carney, an indeterminate sentence was not called for in this case. There was no evidence in the man’s medical background of paedophilia, he stressed.

He came from a very difficult family background and he said the extent of his cooperation with the prosecution had to be taken into account.

The judge said the accused’s dysfunctional background afforded little if any mitigation and the question of drink or drugs afforded no defence. Imposing two concurrent life sentences, he said in the normal course of events, he would be entitled to a substantial discount for pleading guilty, but the case was too serious.

The man’s solicitor has confirmed that an appeal has been lodged. “The appeal is on the grounds that the sentence was excessive in all of the circumstances,” Mr Geraghty said.