Paedophile jailed for abuse of 1-year-old

A convicted paedophile has been jailed for three and a half years for sexually assaulting a baby girl who had been left in his care while her parents went out drinking.

Michael O’Brien, aged 46, committed the abuse against a backdrop of severe neglect and physical abuse by the one-year-old girl’s parents. The court heard there was no clean clothes, electricity, or food in the house at the time, although food was kept in the freezer for when social workers visited.

Last month, O’Brien was released from a 12-year term imposed in 2008 for the sexual abuse of two children who were under the age of six. In 1993, he was jailed for four years for the aggravated sexual assault of a 60-year-old woman during a burglary of her home.