Man sentenced to 15 years in ‘depraved’ daughter-rape case

A man who began to rape his seven-year-old daughter after her mother died, and continued to sexually assault her for four more years, was sentenced to 15 years in jail yesterday.  
Last February a jury convicted a 47-year-old man of repeatedly raping and molesting his daughter at their home in Co Mayo and abroad. The offences took place from 2006 to 2010, when the child was aged between seven and eleven years of age.
Describing his offending as ‘depraved’, Ms Justice Deirdre Murphy yesterday (Monday) sentenced the man to 15 years’ imprisonment, with the last year suspended.
The man cannot be named in order to protect his victim’s identity. The court heard that the man has an ongoing drinking problem.
Ms Justice Murphy said that the sentencing was taking place in unusual circumstances, as since the conviction, the complainant is alleged to have told a number of people that she had lied in her evidence.
She said this was now the subject of a Garda investigation, but there was no evidence before the court relating to the allegation.
The accused stands convicted by a jury and the court’s role is to sentence him appropriately, she said.
Bereaved
Following the death of her mother, the man took custody of the victim, and for the next four years he repeatedly raped her and regularly molested her, the court heard. The abuse took place in the family home in Co Mayo and at locations abroad.
In February, the court heard the first rape took place on the day the man took his daughter back into his home after the death of her mother. He referred to her by her dead mother’s name and continued to do this during subsequent attacks.
He raped her in the toilets of the family home and, on one occasion, in her bedroom when he found her trying to hang herself from a light fixture.
On another occasion he raped her while she was grounded for running up a phone bill. The abuse came to light after a teacher asked her why she didn’t have her homework done.
The child told the teacher that her father was physically abusive to her and  authorities were alerted. The man was arrested in 2013 and a file on the case was submitted to the DPP in June 2015.
“He took custody of a bereaved child and bent her to his will. He dominated and controlled her for four years,” the judge said yesterday.
She said that during her evidence, the complainant, now an adult, displayed real insight as to the level of damage caused by the abuse. The complainant said the damage would stay with her for the rest of her life.

Texts
The court heard that after his arrest the accused breached an order to not contact the victim when he sent her numerous text messages under a number of aliases. These texts, in which the victim indicated she was willing to withdraw her allegations, were shown to the jury.
In her evidence, the victim said she was alone at the time and was willing to rejoin her father if he stopped drinking.
Ms Justice Murphy said the jury members were left with a stark choice as to whether the texts were ‘the machinations of a manipulative controlling child abuser’ or evidence of a complainant who was ‘unreliable and who had fabricated her evidence’.
“By their verdict they decided the former,” she said.
The man pleaded not guilty to all offences and continues to maintain his innocence.