A man who engaged in the “depraved” sexual abuse of his eight-year-old daughter, filming her ordeal, which was later discovered by his new partner, has been jailed for 11 years.
The 33-year-old Midlands man, who can't be named to protect the anonymity of the child, was confronted by his new girlfriend in August 2024 when she found two videos of the man abusing his daughter on an old phone of his, the Central Criminal Court heard.
When she drove to the bar where he was working and confronted him from her car, the man smashed the driver window, grabbed the phone and broke it over his leg, a local detective garda told Fiona Murphy SC, prosecuting.
The woman rang 999 and gardaí later trawled CCTV footage from the local area, where the man was seen walking down a nearby lane and hiding the broken phone in a hole in the wall.
The phone was found by investigators and the videos were retrieved.
He was arrested and the girl's mother – the man's former partner – was informed.
The court heard the couple had been together since they were young and had three children together, including this daughter, but separated in 2020 after he was unfaithful.
The court heard the man had access to the children for a period of time and they would stay over in his home, before he stopped seeing them from around the middle of 2023.
Around this time, the girl started sleepwalking and was hospitalised for a panic attack. When asked by specialist interviewers what made her sad, she said: “My Daddy makes promises he never keeps” but she did not make any disclosures of abuse.
When the videos on the man's phone were examined by gardaí, they found two videos made on the same day in which the man was abusing his daughter and giving her detailed instructions on how to perform sexual acts on him.
He told her to carry out certain acts “like we did before”.
After the videos came to light, the man fled the jurisdiction and went to the UK. A European Arrest Warrant was issued, and he was arrested in August 2025 and returned to this jurisdiction. He has been in custody since.
He entered guilty pleas on the first day of his Central Criminal Court trial date last January to 10 charges comprising three counts of oral rape, five counts of sexual assault and two counts of producing child pornography on March 5th 2023.
He has six previous convictions including drugs and road traffic offences.
He has been assessed as being at an average risk of sexual re-offending.
Judge Melanie Greally said the man had committed “horrendous violations against his own child”.
Sentencing him on Monday, she said the aggravating factors included the “particular depravity of the sexual acts” he committed against his own daughter, noting the “multiplicity of violations” which occurred. She said it was an aggravating factor that he recorded the acts and saved them on his phone.
She said the court had to take into account “the extreme and potentially lasting harm and damage caused to (the child) as a consequence of the offences”.
She set a headline sentence of 15 years, which she reduced to 11 years taking into account mitigating factors, including the man's guilty plea, his limited previous convictions, his drug addiction at the time and his history of poor mental health.
She placed him under the supervision of the Probation Service for a period of five years upon his release from custody. He is to have no contact with his daughter or her family during this period and no unsupervised access to any children, the judge ruled.
She also ordered him to engage in a sex offender programme if deemed suitable, along with other offence-related and victim-focused work.
The judge thanked the victim for taking part in the court process and for her helpful victim impact statement. “I hope the conclusion of the case will enable her and her family to move forward,” she said.
In a victim impact statement which she read out at a previous sentence hearing, the child's mother outlined how her daughter has “endured profound trauma due to the horrific actions of her father”, which has had a “devastating” impact on her mental and emotional well-being.
The now 11-year-old girl suffers from severe anxiety, panic attacks, sleepwalking and night terrors and has periods of dissociation where she zones out, the court heard.
“My daughter was once notably outgoing,” the mother said, describing how she used to make friends easily and had a “vibrant, open personality”.
She is now withdrawn, retreats into herself, is shy and timid, cries over little things and struggles to be separated from her mother, the court heard.
“He has taken away a precious part of her childhood and it has rippled throughout the entire family,” the mother said. She asked the court to take into account the “long term suffering and trauma” the child has endured as a result of her father's actions.
Murphy said the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) placed the man's offending at the higher end of the scale, meriting a headline sentence of 15 years to life.
She cited factors including the fact the victim had just turned eight years old, the filming of the abuse, the breach of trust by her own father and the serious damage done to the child.
In his plea of mitigation, defence counsel John Hayden SC said the man now accepts his guilt and had entered guilty pleas to the effect but conceded he has limited insight into the harm caused by his offending.
He has a number of health issues, is dyslexic and has ADHD. He was bullied as a child and has alleged that he was sexually abused himself as a child.
He maintained he has no recollection of abusing his daughter due to his drug addiction at the time.
The man denied having a sexual interest in children and said he did not know why he committed the offences.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie/services/helpline/ or visit Rape Crisis Help. In the case of an emergency, always dial 999/112.
