Warning: This article contains details of child abuse that some readers may find distressing. 

A “DEPRAVED” FATHER who raped, degraded and sexually assaulted his daughter over a 16-year period, exhibiting “a depth of cruelty that was extraordinary”, has had his 10.5-year jail term increased to 17 years by the Court of Appeal. 

In allowing an appeal by the State against the leniency of his sentence, the court described the man’s “litany of depraved abuse” as “humiliating, degrading, shocking and reprehensible”. 

The court heard the man repeatedly raped and molested his daughter, recorded the offending and on one occasion used an electric sander to abuse her. 

The man, who cannot be named so as to protect the identity of his victim, was sentenced to 12 years with the final 18 months suspended at the Central Criminal Court in November of last year.

The 66-year-old man began molesting his daughter when she was six or seven. He went on to molest and rape her into her 20s.

He pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to rape, oral rape, indecent assault, sexual assault and aggravated sexual assault on various dates between 1990 and 2006. 

Most of the offending took place in the family home in Dublin.

The pleas were to nine sample charges from a total of 54 charges.

The aggravated sexual assault involved the defendant using an electric sander to molest his daughter.

In sentencing the man, Mr Justice Paul McDermott said that the aggravating factors in the case included the appalling humiliation and degradation of the victim, the defendant’s continued and persistent manipulation of his daughter and the complete breach of trust.

He also noted that the abuse and the isolation and focus by the defendant on the victim and her life completely distorted her childhood. He said the case was in the most serious category of sexual offending and rape and set a headline sentence of 16 years for the rape offences, seven years for the sexual assault and ten years for the aggravated sexual assaults.

Today, Fiona Murphy SC, for the State, said the level of “degradation” involved for the victim over that time meant the headline sentence of 16 years identified was in error and that the sentence was an unduly lenient one.

Murphy said that the male had groomed his daughter and that she had been indoctrinated by her father who abused her into her 20s.

Physical assaults included choking the girl with a telephone cord and punching her.

Murphy said the trial judge erred in not putting the headline sentence in the 15 years-to life bracket for the “utter degradation” of his victim and told the court that the man’s guilty plea was a late one.

John D Fitzgerald SC, for the man, said the correct category had been identified by the trial judge when selecting 16 years as the headline sentence. He said the highest category scale for sentencing was chosen in cases of gang rape and in those involving multiple victims. 

Appeal court judge Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy replied that it was “hard to see a case that was worse”.

Fitzgerald said that while his client carried out “utter depravity” he was loved by the remainder of the family members. He said that the man had personal difficulties from his childhood and had no previous convictions at the time of his sentencing. 

In increasing the man’s sentence, Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy said the man committed a “litany of depraved abuse”.

She recounted the incidents of abuse heard at trial and said she would quash the sentence of 12 years with 18 months suspended and re-sentence the man. 

She identified 22 years as the correct headline sentence and reduced it to 17 years in jail after mitigation without any part suspended.

She recommended that he be placed on the sex offenders register and engage with probation services for five years upon his release.

She described his abuse of his daughter when reading the judgement as “nothing short of horrific”, “appalling, degrading, depraved, and humiliating” and said the depth of his cruelty “beggars belief and was quite extraordinary”.