Some readers may find the details in the article disturbing.
A CONVICTED SEX offender faces a maximum prison sentence of two years for each count of sexually assaulting his younger brother over a five-year period.
The now 44-year-old victim developed a 20-year-long stammer the first time his brother sexually assaulted him in the 1980s.
The victim told the jury during the trial that his brother anally penetrated him three times, and said as a consequence of one of these incidences, he lost control of his bowel movements for a short time.
The abuse began when he was nine years old and ended when the then 14-year-old “developed the strength” to tell the man “to fuck off or he would tell”.
His 53-year-old brother was convicted following a trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court earlier this year.
The man had pleaded not guilty to 56 counts of indecent assault between December 1980 and December 1985 at the men’s family home in Dublin. The accused was aged between 18 and 23 years old at the time.
As the offences were committed prior to the Criminal Law (Rape) (Amendment) Act of 1990 the man has been charged with indecent assault which carries a maximum penalty of two years.
The judge has a discretion to impose consecutive sentences but as this man is currently serving a nine-year prison sentence for the sexual abuse of his sister, the judge must also take into account proportionality when imposing sentence.
Tara Burns SC, defending, said her client was appealing the severity of the nine-year sentence imposed on him last year.
Judge Patricia Ryan adjourned the case for sentence to next April to allow for the decision on the appeal of his existing sentence. She also requested an updated medical report after she heard that the man was hospitalised recently having suffered a stroke while in custody.
A local garda told Roisin Lacey BL, prosecuting, that the victim contacted gardaí in 2014 and the man was arrested in July 2014. He denied all the allegations and said he never laid a hand on his brother.
He told gardaí that the man was making up the allegations and “telling lies, a pack of filthy Jesus lies”. The garda confirmed that the man has 30 previous convictions which are mainly for road traffic offences apart from the term he is currently serving.
The victim took the stand to read his victim impact report. He said he first thought the abuse was a game but it then became “an utter nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from”.
He said that due to a family tragedy at the time he felt alone and exposed.
In my time of need, I needed someone to be there and to protect me”
He said he should have been able to turn to a big brother, “but mine took that opportunity to use me to his own advantage”. He said there was no escape.
The man said he had since suffered horrific nightmares and woke his family up with them. He said in order to survive he tried to “block everything out” but this meant he also blocked out his happy childhood memories:
They are ruined, damaged and gone because of this horrific demon.
The victim described feeling ashamed and filthy as a child before he added that the abuse defined his childhood but he was determined not to let it define his life.
“It will always stay with me. I have survived, lived, to get justice for that vulnerable little boy,” he said.
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