‘I had to break my silence of 20 years to protect others’

A father who sexually abused his 10-year-old daughter has apologised for not admitting to his crimes and for putting her through the painful experience of a trial last month.

The man, aged 53, who cannot be named for legal reasons, went on trial last December charged with sexually abusing and orally raping his daughter in their Offaly home when she was aged between 10 and 12.

He had pleaded not guilty to three counts of sexually assaulting his daughter and three counts of orally raping her on three occasions between February 1994 and September 1996.