Man gets 12 years for raping daughter

A farm labourer has been jailed for 12 years for raping and sexually abusing his daughter for almost a decade.

A detective garda revealed the Kildare man abused his daughter from when she was just three years old.

In her victim impact statement, the girl said sometimes she feels “death is the only answer”.

The court heard that on one occasion when the girl was aged about 12, the man tied her to a tree with calving rope and raped her. The detective explained this rope tightens when it is pulled.

He told Remy Farrell, prosecuting, on another occasion, the man tried to give the girl a tablet in a chocolate bar before he brought her to a secluded woodland area and raped her. Gardaí found a condom with the man’s DNA in a search of the spot after the girl made her formal complaints.

The man, aged 48, who cannot be named to protect the victim’s identity, had pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to 18 counts of sex assault, one count each of oral rape and attempted rape and four counts of raping his daughter on dates between 2001 and 2010.

The detective told Mr Farrell that the victim, who was absent from court, confided in her mother about the abuse when her parent’s relationship ended.

The detective read out the girl’s victim impact statement, in which she described how she could never call her father “dad” again.

She said words such as “shame, hurt, anger, depression, fear” are constantly in her head.

She said the man made her feel like the abuse was a “normal father/daughter thing”.

“Any man can be a father, but it takes a good man to be a dad,” she stated.

She praised the gardaí who had conducted the investigation and said she thought she was now ready for counselling.

The detective said there was medical evidence that the girl had been physically damaged from all the abuse.

He agreed with Conor Devally, defending, that the man had had a disruptive background.

Mr Justice Barry White said he agreed with the DPP’s view that the rape offences warranted a 15-year sentence. He suspended the final three years of the sentence for three years, taking into consideration the man’s dysfunctional background and lack of previous convictions.

He ordered the man, who has been registered as a sex offender, not to have any unwanted contact with his daughter during the suspended time.