Child rapist groomed girl in UK after Garda interview

A child rapist was able to travel to the UK and commit further offences after being interviewed by gardaí here who had seen a video of him raping an 11-year-old girl.

Michael Smith, aged 53, from Tipperary, groomed, raped, and sexually assaulted the girl, who he considered to be his daughter, for 10 years before going to the UK where he was jailed for grooming and sexually abusing a teenage girl he met through a social media site.

The Central Criminal Court heard that the Irish victim went to gardaí about the abuse in 2004 when she was 17. She said she had been continuously sexually abused by him from the age of eight.