Father Guilty Of Raping Children

A Dublin court has found a father guilty of raping his two daughters and sexually abusing his son.

The jury of eight men and four women at the Central Criminal Court, convicted the man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his children, of 80 sexual offences against the three victims, yesterday.

The jury returned two verdicts of not guilty of sexual assault against one of daughters and still have to decide on a further 14 counts.

The 73-year-old accused man pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting and raping his two daughters between the ages of five and 11-years-old and sexually assaulting his son from the age of three to six at various locations between 1997 to 2002.

The gruelling trial is now in its seventh week and the jury deliberated for more than 11 hours yesterday.

During the trial, the eldest daughter, now 19 years old, and second daughter, now 18-years-old, both told the court of harrowing abuse suffered from an early age at the hands of their father before being taken into care.

The accused’s son, now aged 17, gave evidence that his father sexually abused him in his bedroom and in the bathroom from the age of three.

The boy’s foster mother told the court how when he arrived at her house he was undernourished, was unable to eat solid food and was not toilet trained.

The accused man gave evidence in his own defence. He said the family home could not have been happier and denied either physically or sexually abusing his children.

The man was later interviewed by gardaí in May 2002. No charges were brought at that time. He was subsequently interviewed in 2006 in relation to allegations of sexual abuse and later charged.

(DW/GK)