Sligo man convicted of daughter's rape

A Sligo man has been convicted of raping and sexually assaulting his teenage daughter.

The Central Criminal Court jury found the 46-year-old man guilty of rape on a date between April and June 2006 and one count of sexual assault on a date between March and June 2006.

The jurors were unable to agree a verdict on three further counts of sexual assault. They had been deliberating for five hours and four minutes in total on day six of the trial.

The man, who can not be named for legal reasons, had pleaded not guilty to one count of rape and four counts of sexual assault on dates between September 2005 and June 2006. The girl was aged between 14 and 15 at the time of the offences.

Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne thanked the jury of four women and eight men for their attention to the case and excused them from further service for five years.

Ms Justice Dunne ordered the man be registered as a sex offender and ordered the preparation of a victim impact report. She set a sentence date of December 8 next.

During the trial the now 19-year-old woman gave evidence via video link.

On one occasion she said her father told her that he would give her money the next day if she let him do what he wanted to do.

She said the assaults happened “not every night but most nights”.

She told told Ms Isobel Kennedy SC, prosecuting, that her father raped her when she was 15 years old. She said she felt dirty, upset and confused afterwards.

The woman told Ms Kennedy that on a later occasion she called her father “a pervert” and he kicked her in the face.

The woman agreed with defence counsel, Mr Kenneth Fogarty SC, during cross examination, that her father had told her he was sorry he ever had her following an argument. She agreed she was upset and the comment was hurtful.

“Me and dad had a love-hate relationship, I reminded him of himself,” she said

When asked why she did not cry out during the alleged rape she said: “When you are brought up with a man like dad you are physically and mentally scared of him.”

The accused man, giving evidence on his own behalf, told Mr Fogarty that his daughter “makes up stories on a regular basis about a lot of people”.

He told Mr Fogarty that when, in October 2007, he was arrested and questioned on the rape allegation he was “shocked” and broke down crying when he was put into a cell.

He said he told gardaí he had not been getting on with his daughter. He said “there had been lots of shenanigans, a catalogue of things from previous weeks”.

He told Mr Fogarty that at about 11am, when the rape was alleged to have taken place, his routine would have meant he was out of the house going about his business.

Mr Fogarty asked him what he had to say about the allegation that he had sexually abused his daughter while her sister slept in the same room. “That‘s untrue, I would never do anything like that,” he replied.

The accused man told gardaí when he was being interviewed that his daughter was a “compulsive liar” and was always causing trouble.