Dad jailed for 12 years for raping 8-year-old daughter (Ireland)

Was there a mother in this home? If so, why isn't her role in all this clarified? Or was UNNAMED DAD a single father? If so, why isn't that fact reported along with the circumstances which gave him custody?

INVISIBLE MOTHER ALERT.

http://www.examiner.ie/breakingnews/ireland/man-jailed-for-12-years-for-abuse-of-eight-year-old-daughter-512382.html

Man jailed for 12 years for abuse of eight-year-old daughter

Monday, July 11, 2011 - 06:04 PM

A man who raped his eight-year-old daughter leaving her with continual nightmares that he would snatch her from her foster home and abuse her again has been jailed for 12 years.

The 43-year-old man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the victim, had previously pleaded not guilty to one charge of rape and one of sexual assault against the girl on a date in September, 2007.

He was cleared of the latter charge but convicted of rape following nearly seven hours of deliberations last April.

Mr Justice Paul Carney declared the man a sex offender and said he had deprived himself of “the primary source of mitigation, a plea of guilty, by putting his daughter on proof”.

He said the crime represented “a gross breach of trust” and there were “no factors in favour of him” to reduce the sentence by suspending part of it.

Mr Justice Carney also ordered that the man undergo 10 years' post-release supervision.

At the sentencing hearing last month a victim impact statement detailed how the now 11-year-old girl suffers repeated nightmares in which her father takes her away from her foster family.

“She does not want to see her father because she says ‘I will remember all the stuff he did’,” a court appointed guardian read from her statement.

“She no longer calls him her father. She wishes she could change her surname.”

The young girl is now confused about how to deal with other people especially children, the court was told.

She feels that she can’t have a best friend because she is unable to admit to another person details of her life before she went into care.

“She has a deep-seeded fear of being taken away from her foster parents and being returned to life with her family,” the guardian explained.

Constantly worried about being snatched by her father, she checks all the doors and windows are locked in her new home.

Mr Justice Carney was told that the young girl is having trouble concentrating in school and that while she is still receiving counselling, her ability to forge relationships has been damaged.

A local sergeant gave evidence that he was involved in both the rape investigation and a previous investigation into child neglect and cruelty against several of the man’s children and for which he received a seven-year prison term last year.

Under cross examination, the sergeant agreed with Mr Blaise O’Carroll SC, defending, who said that his client had agreed to attend the garda station by invitation following his family’s visit. He has been in custody ever since.