A Kildare man has been sentenced to jail for sexually abusing three girls

A Kildare man has been sentenced to four years in prison for historical sexual assault.

The Central Criminal Court heard that the thirty-nine-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was found guilty of nine counts of sexual assault against three girls who were aged between seven and seventeen at the time of the assaults on unknown dates between 1996 and 2022. The accused man was aged between twelve and seventeen when the offending took place. 

The accused has no previous convictions, and he does not accept the verdict of the jury.

The court heard that the accused would play a game with two of the injured parties that he called “Nerves”. This would entail the girls sitting very still while he would begin to touch them, starting with their legs and moving all the way to their vaginas. On other occasions, the defendant would run into a room where the girls were and make animal noises. He would then put his hands on the girls and pinch their vaginas.

When one of these girls was aged twelve, the defendant gave her “alcopops”, and she was found later that night in a wooded area, unclothed, with the defendant lying on top of her.

The third complainant in the trial gave evidence that she was attending an event and waiting for a lift home when she was approached by the defendant. He brought her to the carpark and then pushed her against a car and touched her breasts. The girl managed to push him away and heard someone calling her. The girl and the defendant then got into a car, and the defendant then tapped her on the shoulder; when she turned around, he had his hand down his trousers and was making “thrusting” movements. The defendant then removed his hand from his trousers and stuck it in the girl’s mouth. 

At a hearing earlier this month, the three women took the stand to deliver their victim impact statements.

The first woman, who was one of the girls with whom the accused played the “Nerves” game, said it was impossible to put into one statement the impact the abuse has had on her.

“It has fundamentally changed my personality,” she said, outlining how she has been unable to sleep for the past number of years. She said had very fond memories of school and enjoyed spending time in her friend’s house, which was where she first met the accused.

“I was afraid of him, just in the way he looked at me. I would protest his game of nerves and just avoid him,” she said before she added that the accused “seemed to delight in getting away with it under people’s noses”.

“I was mostly confused. I didn’t understand what the true threat was, but I understood there was a real one,” the woman continued. 

She spoke of how, in the aftermath of the abuse, she may not have thought about the accused directly, but she became overprotective of her young sisters. She said she would scream at them if they got themselves into “dangerous situations”.

She said she spoke to her school friend, the second victim, years later, and they discussed what had happened to them as children.

She said she was concerned about the accused’s access to children and felt that it had to be reported. She said after reporting the abuse to the gardaí, she suffered more and described having episodes of insomnia, anxiety, losing weight, losing friends, losing time, and losing her mind.

“I have sacrificed six years of my life to stop this man, but it is the end,” she said.

The second woman said had felt happy, safe and content as a child and looked on the accused as a brother.

“At the start, I didn’t know what was happening to me. It felt wrong, and I didn’t know why. You took away my innocence and made me feel dirty and ashamed. You took opportunities and used it for your own gain,” the woman said. 

She went on to describe the effect of the night the man gave her alcohol before he was found lying on top of her.

She said she started drinking alcohol at the age of 12, and this pattern continued throughout her teenage years. She also struggled with boundaries and trust.

She recalled an incident years later when she saw the accused with her very young niece, and she felt “unsettled”.

“I never left my niece alone with him. I was so terrified to leave her alone with him because I know these things happen,” the woman continued.

She described turning to alcohol to cope and spoke of having self-destructive behaviour and a “strong self of shame”.

“I couldn’t hug my father. It impacted my relationships with men, including my brother,” the woman continued.

Referring to the trial, the woman said, “You made me get on the stand and made me tell everyone.” 

“This time it is not my fault. I should not be ashamed; you should be ashamed. You claimed that at 12 years old, I didn’t say ‘no’ to you after you got me drunk,” the woman said.

“You will not have that power again,” she continued before she added that she has so much relief now that she was believed.

“You derailed my life. I am taking back the power you took from me,” she said.

The third woman who was sexually assaulted by the accused as a 17-year-old girl spoke of how she had had a really happy and contented childhood with strong friendships.

She said her parents “literally could not have done more to protect” her.

Referring to the assault, she said: “He knew my father was collecting us, and he took me away from the group. At no point could he have said I was consenting. I pushed him away. The action needed to stop. He laughed.”

Speaking of the incident in the car with her father, she said she could not understand why anybody would do that and disrespect her father in that way. She described it as “a disgusting vile incident”. 

She spoke about how she felt when she learned he had sexually abused other young girls.

“I learned that I was just another cog in the wheel,” she said.

She referred to the trial and said she was “sick to the pit of my stomach” listening to his opportunistic sexual assaults and watching him “defiantly sitting there”.

She concluded her statement by saying that “justice had prevailed” ... “credible and reliable I certainly am.”

Passing sentence on Thursday, Mr Justice David Keane expressed his gratitude to the three injured parties in this trial for their engagement and preservation in the process. He wished them all well for the future.

Judge Keane said the aggravating factors in this case were that two of the three injured parties were of a very young age and vulnerable. He said one of the injured parties was plied with alcohol at the age of twelve and then sexually assaulted. He noted that there were three injured parties in total and that each of them had been psychologically damaged as a result of the abuse. 

The judge said the mitigating factors, in this case, were the lack of previous convictions, the accused’s cooperation with gardaí, the testimonials given to the court by his family and partner, that he has never come to any adverse attention of the gardaí, and that now as he is about to turn forty, he is answering to offences that he committed when he was a teenager.

Judge Keane sentenced him to a global sentence of four years and outlined the sentence would have been higher if the offences had been committed when the accused was an adult. He further imposed probation supervision for two years post-release and ordered that the accused carry out all directions as indicated.

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Sophia Martinez