A man identified in the judgment as A.B. was sentenced by the Central Criminal Court to 15 years’ imprisonment for each of 24 rape convictions involving his two daughters. The sentences for the rape offences are to run concurrently. The court suspended the final three years on specified conditions.
A jury convicted A.B. on 12 December 2013, after a four-day trial, of 13 counts of rape and six counts of indecent assault against his daughter X., and 11 counts of rape against his daughter Y. The offences took place between 1975 and 1988, when the girls were children and teenagers. The judgment says the abuse occurred when each daughter was alone at home with her father.
At the sentence hearing on 25 January 2014, A.B. said he admitted all the offences of which the jury had convicted him and would not appeal the convictions. Through counsel, he apologised to his daughters. The court treated the apology and remorse, despite coming after conviction, as a mitigating factor. It also noted that he had no previous convictions.
The court identified the victims’ young ages, the breach of trust by their father and primary caregiver, the frequency and duration of the offending, and its occurrence in the family home as aggravating factors. It considered the seriousness and length of the abuse, the time since it ended, and A.B.’s age and health, alongside the sentencing submissions and cited decisions.
For each of the six indecent assault counts, the court imposed a two-year sentence. The judgment does not state that those sentences run concurrently with the rape sentences. It suspended the final three years of the 15-year rape sentence on condition that A.B. enter a bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour towards all the people of Ireland during that period, and undertake sex-offender counselling while in prison. The court said the counselling condition was without prejudice to any right to appeal against sentence.
The court also directed that A.B. be placed on the Register of Sex Offenders and imposed a one-year post-release supervision order under the Sex Offenders Act 2001.