"I hope the guilt eats him alive" - Donegal sisters on impact of sexual abuse by father

Two Donegal sisters have told of the horrific trauma they suffered at the hands of their abusive father, who was jailed on Wednesday for eight and a half years after subjecting his daughters to ‘a campaign of sexual abuse’.

The man was convicted by a jury at Leterkenny Circuit Court following a three-day trial on 31 counts of sexual assault, child cruelty and sexual exploitation.

Most of the offences arose out of playing a ‘truth or dare’ game. The catalogue of offences were described by Judge John Aylmer was ‘very depraved abuse’.

The girls were aged 13 and 14 at the time the abuse began. The man cannot be named to protect the identity of his daughters.

“I cannot put into words how angry, hurt, depressed and mentally drained I am,” the older sister said in a victim impact statement.

“I have questions that will ever be answered.

“I will never be ok. I am suffering so badly and probably always will.”

The woman, now aged 24, said the episode became ‘so mentally draining’ to the point where she ‘hated’ herself.

While at school, the girl began self-harming.

“Each time I get like this, it gets a bit harder to fight,” she said.

“All I think about is: ‘Why me? Why did I have to suffer and grow up before my time?’

“The whole abuse was awful, but the after-effects are indescribable. It hurts. It breaks you, even when you feel that you have nothing left inside you to be broken.

“I didn’t know that my whole world and my whole life would never be the same. I didn’t know how alone or depressed I would become or how riddled with anxiety I would be. The worst part of it all is the sickening flashbacks and the PTSD.”

Judge John Aylmer

The woman told how she still has nightmares about the abuse.

She said: I wouldn’t wish the pain I endured on another single soul.

“I hope it haunts him as much as it haunts us. I hope the guilt eats him alive.”

On one occasion, the man instructed one of his daughters to insert a biro into her vagina while he watched and on another he ejaculated into her hand.

The man forced his daughter to watch a couple engage in a sexual act when they were in contact with others on the Omegle website.

The acts occurred mainly on Tuesday nights when the girls’ mother was out visiting a relative.

The younger of the sisters, in a victim impact statement read by Detective Garda Alison Moore, said the abuse had ruined her dreams to become a midwife.

“My daddy ruined my plans,” she said.

“I wanted to do the Leaving Cert, go to college, get a good job that would pay well and allow me to travel the world.

“I lost all interest in school and started self-harming and cutting different parts of my body.I fell really far behind in school and I was so confused.

“I felt like my head was going to burst with the pressure. I felt that I was on edge all the time. I couldn’t handle all the pressure.

“Maybe some day I will go back and finish education, but right now it’s the least of my priorities.”

The man repeatedly denied the sick acts before being found guilty by a jury. Last week, he took to the witness box and said he acknowledged and accepted the verdict of the jury.

The woman, now 23, said: “I will never forgive him for taking advantage of me the way he did.  Even if did get past it, I have scars which are a constant reminder of how I hated myself.

“I felt worthless and I didn’t want to exist anymore. This was all because of what my father had done.

“I felt that I was being put on trial. If he had pleaded guilty and owned up, I wouldn’t have had to take the stand and go through this horrible experience.”