18 years 'proportionate' for one of the most serious sexual cases to come before judge, Court of Appeal hears

A man who broke into his ex-partner's home before subjecting her and her teenage foster daughter to a series of violent rapes described as a “night of horror” has lost an appeal against the severity of his 18-year prison sentence.

The 38-year-old Limerick man, who cannot be named, threatened the child's foster mother with a knife during the seven-and-a-half-hour ordeal which only ended when he fell asleep the next morning.