Donegal man jailed after ‘depraved abuse’ of two daughters

A Donegal man will spend eight and a half years behind bars after exposing his teenage daughters to ‘a campaign of sexual abuse’.

Sentencing the man, who cannot be named in order to maintain the anonymity of his daughters, at Letterkenny Circuit Court, Judge John Aylmer said the impact on the victims from ‘very depraved abuse’ was ‘quite devastating.

The man, who is aged in his 50s, was convicted by a jury following a three-day trial on 31 counts of sexual assault, child cruelty and sexual exploitation.

The offences relate to various dates between June 2011 and September 2015 and most arose out of playing a ‘truth or dare’ game.

One of the daughters was present in court with other family members while Judge Aylmer passed sentencing and watched as the man was led away by prison officers.

On two counts of sexual assault and the sexual exploitation of a child, Judge Aylmer placed in what he called the upper end of the midrange and merited a starting point of a sentence of ten years in prison.

Judge John Aylmer

When the girl was aged 14, her father asked her to pull down her pyjamas and underwear and insert a biro into her vagina. 

The woman told how, on another occasion they went onto the Omegle website and communicated with ‘randomers’. They were in contact with a young couple, who were naked at the time, and the father forced his daughter watch them engage in a sexual act.

On two counts of sexual assault, Judge Aylmer also deemed an appropriate starting point of ten years in prison. On one occasion, the man instructed his daughter to insert a biro into her vagina while he watched and on another he ejaculated into her hand.

On seven counts of child cruelty against the elder daughter, Judge Aylmer a starting point of four years in prison on each count was suitable, while 12 counts of sexual exploitation each merited a starting point of seven years in prison.

The accused man, who stood emotionless while Judge Aylmer passed judgement, was found guilty of one count of child cruelty against his younger daughter, an offence which he said merited a starting point of four years imprisonment, while seven counts of sexual exploitation, which he placed on the midrange of such offending, had an appropriate starting point of seven years.

Letterkenny courthouse

“It involved a gross breach of trust by a father in relation to two adolescent daughters,” Judge Aylmer said. “It involved a campaign of sexual abuse of his daughters, who were aged 13 and 14. That abuse continued over a period of three years.

“The impact was quite devastating. The abuse was of a very depraved nature and it involved the use of alcohol with one of the girls to facilitate his exploitation of her.”

Judge Aylmer reduced each sentence by six months. On the four most serious charges, the man was sentenced to nine and a half years imprisonment.  Six-and-a-half-year sentences were handed down on each of 14 other charges of sexual exploration with three-and-a-half-year sentences given on each of seven charges of child cruelty.

All sentences will run concurrently and the final 12 months were suspended ‘in the interest of rehabilitation’ on the man entering a bond of €100 to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for 12 months after his release meaning he will serve eight and a half years in prison.

The man is to go under the supervision of the Probation Service and to comply with all directions.

“There is little mitigation,” Judge Aylmer said. “While discussing matters with the Probation Service, he remained in denial of the offences, leaving the Probation Service with very little scope for positive recommendations.”

At Letterkenny Circuit Court last week, the man took to the witness box and said he accepted the verdict of the jury and acknowledged that everything said during the trial was true.

The older sister told how she was just 13 when the depraved sequence of events started.

She was watching The Hills Have Eyes, a horror movie, with her father one Tuesday night. When the girl became scared, her father cuddled her and initiated a truth or dare game.

The man dared his daughter to slap her bum three times. “She thought he was being a creep, she said no and went to bed,” Counsel for the State, Ms Patricia McLaughlin BL, told the court. “There was an underlying sexual tone to the truth or dare games. He always wore a dressing gown, which was quite often open.”

She was, she said, ‘tipsy’ at times and on some instances ‘quite drunk’. Her father took steps to conceal her alcohol consumption, leaving the window open and leaving chewing gum on her pillow.

The woman wept as she recalled the warped dares given to her by her father, who said he would give her money if she came up with ‘good dares’. She said her father’s attitude to her ‘changed for the better’ after she played the games, which involved varying degrees of undress.

On one occasion, she had to twerk with her pyjamas pulled down. On another occasion, the man dared his daughter to hit him on the testicles with an ornamental reed, while they played a card game which was described as ‘effectively strip snap’.

The younger of the sisters said the topic of playing truth or dare came up ‘out of the blue’ while she was making tea one night.

Her father began to ask her questions regarding her sexual activity; questions which, she said made her feel ‘like my skin was crawling’. “I felt sick,” she said. “I felt ashamed.”

She told how her father also offered her money to come up with good dares and she declined the offer of alcohol.

The man dared his daughter to allow him to soak her in freezing water with a hose. “He thought it was absolutely hilarious,” she said.

He dared her one time to put ice cubes between her breasts and another he dared her to stand in a freezing shower. When the man spotted his wife coming back towards the house in her car, told his daughter: “Just put that towel around you and pretend you went for a wash.”

The family were moved out of the house immediately and the man was subsequently arrested in January, 2016. He made no admissions when questioned.

Detective Garda Alison Moore gave evidence of the beginning of a Garda investigation when the girls’ mother presented to a Garda station and alleged that her daughters were being abused by their father.

During the trial, the girls’ mother took to the stand and said: “I was dumbfounded that a father would do this with his daughter.”