Waterford man jailed for abuse of stepdaughters

A Waterford man has been jailed for 12 years for regularly sexually abusing his 10-year-old step daughter and molesting her younger sister over a four-year period.

The 58-year-old accused, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was convicted by a Central Criminal Court jury, sitting in Waterford, on 76 charges of sexual assault on both girls between October 11, 1998 and October 31, 2001.

He had pleaded not guilty to 81 charges, which included incidents of oral and anal rape on the older girl in addition to sexually assaulting her and charges of sexually assaulting the other girl.

Mr Justice Paul Carney had directed the jury to find the accused not guilty on one charge and the members failed to agreed on the remaining charges.

The older girl, now 22, stated in a victim impact report read out by Mr Michael Bowman BL, prosecuting, that she turned to alcohol and drugs and was regularly engaging in underage sex by the time she was 14 years old.

She said she suffered with depression and had nightmares that her stepfather would come back and abuse her own young daughter. She has since attended for both anger management and counselling. “I have more respect for myself now than I ever had,” she stated in the report.

“I feel if I had not been abused my life would have turned out differently. I have peace of mind now that he is on the sex offenders' register. I don’t care if he is free as long as he is on the register,” she said.

Her younger sister, now 21, said in her victim impact statement that her stepfather made her “feel dirty, like I was doing something wrong.”

She also had nightmares and started abusing drugs at a young age. She attended for counselling and anger management and now hopes to return to school to complete her Leaving Certificate.

“I am happy that I was believed and I hope that he will never do again what he did to me,” the woman said in her statement.

Mr Justice Carney said that the “most remarkable feature of the case” had been the older sister’s statement in which she said that she was not concerned about her stepfather being incarcerated as long as he was registered as a sex offender.

He said due to the gravity of the offence he could not do anything more than “acknowledge its (her statement) magnanimity”.

Mr Justice Carney said he had taken into consideration the “inherent gravity of the offence”, the breach of trust involved, the fact that there had been two victims, “the multiplicity of the charges” and the period of time over which the offences were committed.

He said he had taken into account the fact the accused had no previous convictions and had a good work record.

Mr Justice Carney declared the accused a sex offender and ordered that he be under post release supervision for seven years.