Sex assault victim: My childhood was stolen from me

The man who sexually assaulted his niece at a This is Your Life celebration at Páirc Uí Chaoimh and later tried to commit suicide on Carrauntoohill has been jailed for five years with half suspended and placed on the sex pffenders register indefinitely.

Christopher McCarthy, aged 50, of Glendalough Park, the Lough, Cork, was described by a forensic psychiatrist as continuing to represent a risk of future paedophile offending and had shown a callous and remote attitude. In another report, a probation officer said: “There is no way to measure his paedophile tendencies because of his level of denial.”

McCarthy was convicted earlier in July of two counts of sexually assaulting his niece, Tanya Walsh, in 1984 and 1989.