Kildare man jailed for three years for sexual abuse of family members

A Kildare man in his early fifties has been sentenced to three years in jail for the abuse of two of his nieces and their cousin in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Reporting restrictions, which mean that the man cannot be identified, were put on the case when Judge Eoin Garavan passed sentence at Naas Circuit Court on Friday, December 21.

The defendant, who vehemently denied the offences, was found guilty by a jury earlier this year.

At the time of the trial, he said there was “horseplay” with his nieces and that there were hugs in the presence of their grandmother, but he denied inappropriate touching or putting his tongue down the mouths of some of the accused.

The case was heard before a jury from July 17 to 26 last.

At the time of the hearing, Judge Garavan gave a lot of advice to the jury, including advising them to take into account the delay in the report of the allegations to gardai.

The convictions relate to inappropriate sexual touching and other incidents which took place at the accused’s parental home, between 1996 and 2004, approximately.

In the case of one of the girls, the offences included touching of the vagina. Their ages, at the time of the assaults, ranged from six to 11.

On December 21, Dan Boland BL, for the prosecution, read a brief victim impact statement from one girl. She said she had issues of mistrust of men and self worth as a result of the assaults.

Another girl read, choking back tears as she did so, her own statement. In it, she said, among others things, it had “totally ruined her life” and her relationship with her family suffered.

She also felt guilty about the abuse to her sister. She said that reporting the details of abuse four years ago was the “hardest thing I ever did”.

She told the defendant: “You took my life for 24 years and today I am getting it back.”

The defendant’s partner of seven years told the court their relationship was good. She and the defendant hugged each other after the sentencing and before the defendant was taken away to begin his jail term.

The court was told of a report carried out by a psychologist on the defendant, and that he had some issues and had depression. He also had suicidal ideation.

The defendant had no previous convictions of this type, but had one for drink driving, and had been drinking heavily at the time of the offences.

There were good references to the court including one from a local individual with a political background, who had known the defendant for 40 years; and also people for whom the defendant had worked.

In his summary, Judge Garavan paid tribute to the three women for reporting the case, and noted that one spoke of her hope for family reconciliation. Her statement on this influenced his thinking on the case.

There were aggravating circumstances in the case but also mitigating ones. A report said that the man's risk of offending was “low”.

Judge Garavan said the offences were “obviously serious” but they were “not at the upper end” on the scale of offences.

The most aggravating factor was the age of the children, who were vulnerable and dependent and not able to fight back. It was “a huge breach of trust”, he said.

The judge said he would consider a four year sentence on the main headline offence and reduce it to three years due to the mitigating factors.

These included the fact that the defendant had no convictions of this kind since the offences against the three girls.

He imposed a number of one year and six month sentences for some of the offences. They will run concurrently which means that the man will serve three years. He also ordered that the man would have post release supervision and would go on the register of sexual offenders.