Man (44) who raped daughter and conducted 'prolonged, horrific attack' on former partner is jailed

Isabel Hayes

A man who repeatedly raped his young daughter and subjected his former partner to a “prolonged, horrific and cruel attack” in which she thought she was going to be murdered has been jailed for 18 years.

The 44-year-old Dublin man, who can't be named to protect the anonymity of his victims, engaged in a deliberate and calculated campaign of sexual abuse of his daughter, Mr Justice Paul Burns said as he sentenced the man on Tuesday.

“The nature of the offending was abhorrent and depraved,” Mr Justice Burns said of the sexual abuse, noting the effects it has had on the man's daughter, who is still a child.

The man was found guilty by a Central Criminal Court jury of five counts of sexually assaulting his daughter and four counts of raping her on dates between February 2020 and February 2022.

She was aged between five and eight at the time of the abuse.

He was also found guilty of one count of exposing the child to pornography during the same time period.

The man was further found guilty by the jury of one count of false imprisonment of his former partner - the child's mother - and one count of threatening to kill her during a prolonged incident on September 28th, 2023, when he subjected her to a vicious and sustained assault in her home while their daughter was present.

It was after this incident that the child confided to her mother that her father had been abusing her, a local detective garda previously told the man's sentence hearing.

The man pleaded guilty to one count of assault causing harm to his former partner in relation to this incident. The court heard he continues to deny the offense against his daughter and does not accept the guilty verdicts of the jury.

“This was a horrific, prolonged and cruel attack on a former partner in her own home and whose daughter witnessed aspects of it,” Mr Justice Burns said on Tuesday. He said the woman was “truly frightened” and “thought she was about to be murdered”.

He noted this attack fell under the provisions of the Domestic Violence Act and that higher penalties should apply when sentencing the man as a result.

The judge also noted the adverse effects the sexual abuse has had on the man's daughter, noting she is still young and it will likely be some time before the full impact of the offending is known.

He handed down sentences of six years for the offending against the woman and 13 years for the offending against the child. He ordered the sentences to run consecutively and he suspended the final year on a number of conditions, including that the man remain under the supervision of the Probation service for three years after his release from custody.

In victim impact statements read out at a sentence hearing earlier this month, the woman said the man's continued denials have caused their now 10-year-old daughter “enormous hurt”.

“To put his own flesh and blood through this ordeal and to hear that his defence was to say she is lying has been even more damaging for her,” the woman said.

In her victim impact statement, which was read out by the detective garda, the girl said she didn't know why her dad would lie.

“He always said he would never lie or hurt me,” she said. “So I'm a bit confused because he did lie and he did hurt me.”

The court heard that the sustained assault and false imprisonment of the woman took place when the man came to her home. They had previously been in a relationship for about 16 years, but were no longer togethe,r and the woman was in a new relationship at the time, the court heard.

On this occasion, the man and woman were smoking crack cocaine when he flew into a rage and started assaulting her. Over the next 24 hour period, he hit and punched her to the body and face, choked her repeatedly and told her: “I'm fucking ending you tonight.”

At one stage the little girl came to the door asking if mummy is alright and why was she making “ch ch ch” sounds, which the court heard was a reference to the choking sounds the woman was making.

On another occasion in the course of the attack, the man made the woman put on a covid mask so their daughter would not see the extent of her facial injuries. He told her if she called gardaí, he would “kill her stone dead”. The woman was in fear for her life throughout, the court heard.

The woman and child eventually made their way to her partner's house. She had bruising to her face, eye, forehead, cheek, neck, chest and arms, the court heard.

The child gave a specialist interview to gardaí in 2023 in which she outlined what she had witnessed in relation to her father assaulting her mother. In a second interview, she disclosed that she had been sexually abused by her father when she went to stay with him.

The court heard the man showed his daughter pornography and asked her to recreate it. He told her to keep it a secret. The court heard the abuse involved inappropriate touching and progressed to rape.

The abuse stopped when she told him she didn't want to do it anymore, the court heard.

The man has 73 previous convictions, including possession of knives and firearms offences. He has been in custody since December 2024.

The maximum terms for the crimes he committed range from five years to life imprisonment, and the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) placed his offending in the category of 15 years to life imprisonment, prosecuting counsel said.

Paul Murray SC, defending, said his client had a background of drug abuse, including crack cocaine, heroin and tablets. He said his client does not accept the guilty verdicts of the jury.

He said the defendant had a history of going clean from drugs and then relapsing.

Mr Murray said he disagreed with the DPP assessment of the severity of the case, noting that his client had pleaded guilty to assault and was not convicted by the jury of all counts on the indictment, and the finite period of time in which the abuse occurred.

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie/services/helpline/ or visit Rape Crisis Help.