Four-year sentence for uncle who abused girl, 10
The accused man was in jail since a jury found him guilty last November and was sentenced yesterday to four years in prison, backdated to November, with the last 18 months suspended. For six years after his release, he must stay out of the district in Kerry where the sexual assaults occurred. He can only return for events such as funerals on notice to the local sergeant.
“There was a huge breach of trust. He was the adult and she was the child. And she was a vulnerable child,” said Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin.
A jury of five women and seven men took a little over two hours to reach unanimous guilty verdicts on two sexual assault counts at the end of the four-day trial in November at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.
Evidence of the accused being interviewed by gardaí was put to the jury. The defendant repeatedly said: “I done nothing to her. I haven’t been near the child. I never did it.”
Gardaí put to the defendant forensic evidence of the defendant’s semen being found on the hoody worn by the girl when she stayed on the mattress that night. He commented: “If they say it was found on it I cannot argue with it. What I am saying is that on the night — or any other time — I never interfered with that child.”
The complainant gave evidence to specialist gardaí who recorded the interviews and these recordings were played for the jury earlier in the three days of the trial. In them, she said: “My uncle [name] got into bed with me and got on top of me and he started moving… He started moving up and down. He did have his boxers on. He was in the centre of my back. No one else was there.
“I think they [the boxer shorts] were browny black.”
She said she was wearing a pink hoody and that the defendant was on top of her for about a minute.
“I did scream. I kicked him with my heel. When he got off me he said don’t tell anybody. He walked normally downstairs.
“It felt weird on my back, like a rock or something. He started mumbling, he said, don’t tell anyone.”
In relation to another alleged assault she said: “I was sitting down watching telly and he put his hand up my top… I was wearing my white Polo shirt… Up around my breast, he was moving his hand in a circle. I said, stop. I stopped his hand. He said, let go and I will take my hand away.”
Semen from the hoody that the child was wearing on the overnight in her uncle’s house was examined by forensic scientist.
Judge Ó Donnabháin made reference to this yesterday and said the jury found this corroborating evidence persuasive.
