Court hears girl 'lived in fear of man' as he gets partially suspended sentence for abusing her over several years

A 65-year-old man has received a partially-suspended sentence for sexually abusing his partner’s granddaughter over several years.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that the man suggested he had killed his former wife to ensure that the young girl he was sexually abusing would not tell anyone.

The man, who cannot be named to protect the now-teenage girl's anonymity, pleaded guilty to six counts of sexual assault on dates between 2009 to 2013.

Passing sentence today, Judge Cormac Quinn said the case was aggravated by the number of offences, the age of the child at the time of the abuse, the man abusing a position of trust, his making her promise not to tell anyone and the effect the abuse had had on the victim.

Judge Quinn said the mitigating factors in the case were the man's age and personal circumstances, his guilty plea, his admissions, his lack of previous convictions for sexual offending and a psychological report which stated he was in the extremely low range of cognitive function.

He sentenced the man to four-and-a-half year's imprisonment, but suspended the final 18 months of the sentence on condition that he keep the peace and be of good behaviour and follow all directions of the Probation Service for 18 months post-release.

At a previous hearing, the court heard the last of these sexual assaults happened in 2013 when the then 10-year-old girl had been on a trip outside the jurisdiction with the man and his current partner.

Detective Garda Ken McGreevy told Pauline Walley SC, prosecuting, that the girl had been staying in a camper van with both adults. The man had come in drunk while the girl was sleeping and put his fingers in her vagina. He apologised three times as the girl cried.

Det. Gda McGreevy said the girl disclosed this abuse and previous incidents of sexual assault after her mother noticed she had not seemed her usual self on her return home.

The girl subsequently told specialist garda child interviewers that the man had digitally penetrated her between 20 and 50 times over the past number of years. She said this would happen in a shed outside the man's home, when he had her sitting on his knee while he was on a computer.

She said on one occasion he put his fingers in her vagina while they were on a walk together in Wicklow.

On another occasion, she had been spending time with the man and he lifted her on top of him as he lay in bed, pulled her pyjama bottoms down and rubbed his penis off her private parts.

Det. Gda McGreevy told Ms Walley that the man made the girl promise not to tell and made reference to killing a former partner.

'A simple hug makes me feel really uncomfortable'

In a victim impact report read out by Ms Walley, the girl said she would wake up in the middle of the night with bad dreams and wouldn't be able to sleep.

She revealed she lived in fear that the man would come after or hurt her if she shared the secret. She said she had trouble trusting people and that her skin crawls when family members gave her a hug.

She described how the man, through his assaults, would leave her with scrapes and scratches and that it would be painful at times to urinate because of these little cuts. She said her relationship with her father had suffered because she assumed every man wanted to hurt her.

“A simple hug makes me feel really uncomfortable,” she said.

Man accepts 'some degree of paedophilia', court hears

The man claimed to gardaí in interview that he might have accidentally touched her over her clothes if he had been sitting watching TV with his arm around her. Similarly, he claimed the touching might have been accidental while he was helping her ride a bicycle without stabilisers.

He told gardaí he had memory problems but also said the girl was an honest, intelligent child who was not a liar.

When asked if he was a paedophile in light of these allegations, the man replied: “Probably.”

Det. Gda McGreevy agreed with Feargal Kavanagh SC, defending, that his client couldn't bring himself to give full admissions during interview but was accepting “some degree of paedophilia”.

Mr Kavanagh said his client was drinking excessively at the time of the offending behaviour and could not remember having committed the abuse.

He cited a psychological report stating that the accused had cognitive difficulties and was at the lowest percentile of intellectual ability in psychometric assessments.

The court heard the accused was “psychologically vulnerable”, prone to anxiety and depression and had twice attempted to take his own life when he realised the extent of the abuse he had committed.

A number of testimonials and letters were handed in on behalf of the accused.