Man gets six months for abusing family over 18 years

A man who sexually abused his brother, sister and nephew over an 18-year period has been given a six-month prison sentence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Judge Patricia Ryan said repeatedly that “the court has to stress” that it didn’t have the power to impose more than two years for the abuse because that was the maximum sentence in place at the time it occurred.

She said she also had to take the 64-year-old man’s guilty plea into account and the fact that he was suffering from a chronic debilitating condition which would lead to additional hardship in prison. The man appeared in court on a mobility scooter.