Dad gets 15 years for raping daughter during visitation (Clare, Ireland)

Okay. Just want to make sure I have this straight. UNNAMED DAD was a deadbeat (no job, no job skills) and an alchoholic. He has previous convictions for "minor matters." (We don't know how "minor" these matters are because we aren't told what they were). EXCEPT we are told that HE HAD BEEN REGISTERED AS A SEX OFFENDER on a "previous date."

How "previous"? Before he got his visitation rights with his 8-year-old daughter? Or after?

Why did this worthless bastard have access to this child at all? Oh right. Fathers rights. Very powerful in the UK, you know.

http://www.independent.ie/national-news/courts/father-jailed-for-15-years-for-raping-young-daughter-3284210.html


Father jailed for 15 years for raping young daughter

Monday November 05 2012

A CLARE man has been jailed for 15 years for raping and sexually assaulting his young daughter.

The defendant gave his then eight year old daughter alcohol and cigarettes and made her watch a pornographic film as he abused her. He continues to deny the charges and claims the girl’s mother put her up to it.

A sentencing hearing heard that the girl has gone from “a happy fun loving child” to one with severe depression. Her mother said in a statement that she worries how her child will handle her teenage years when she fully realises what happened to her.

Last month a Central Criminal Court jury took under two hours to convict the 50-year-old man of raping the girl between October 1, 2009 and October 22, 2010, in County Westmeath.

The jury also found him guilty of two counts of sexual assault at the same address between the same dates and one count of sexual assault in County Clare, between October 22 and October 26, 2010.

He was also found guilty of inviting the child to observe a pornographic film between October 1, 2009 and October 22, 2010, in Westmeath. He had pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy imposed a combination of consecutive and concurrent sentences which gave a cumulative jail term of 15 years taking into account suspended portions of the terms.

The man had been registered as a sex offender on a previous date.

He imposed a 15 year term on the rape charge, but suspended the final five years, and then imposed a consecutive term of three years and then a further consecutive term of four years with the final two years suspended.

He noted that the showing the child pornographic images might be called “a form of grooming.”

Detective Garda Niall Stack told prosecuting counsel Patrick Marrinan SC that the abuse came to light when the girl’s mother noticed her acting strangely. The child eventually told her what happened after learning in school about “bad secrets”.

The abuse happened in her house and when she visited her father. The girl told specialist gardai that he made her watch an adult film on which she recognised acts her father was doing with her.

On his arrest, the man said he would never lay a finger on his daughter and that the allegations were coming from her mother.

The court heard that the defendant has no job or skills and has a drink problem. He has previous convictions for minor matters.

Mr Marrinan told Mr Justice McCarthy that the Director of Public Prosecutions believes the offending is on the upper end of the scale.

Defence counsel Anthony Sammon SC said he could offer no mitigation or remorse because his client maintains his innocence. However he added that his client had instructed him to conduct “virtually no cross-examination” of the child during the trial.