Belfast man who repeatedly raped and abused his own teenage daughter handed 11 year sentence

By Q Radio News

A Belfast man who repeatedly raped and abused his own teenage daughter “for his own sexual satisfaction” was handed an 11 year sentence today.

Jailing the 40-year-old at Craigavon Crown Court, Judge Patrick Lynch QC said the litany of offences committed against the victim “is as gross a breach of parental responsibility as one can imagine.”

Ordering the pervert to serve half his sentence in jail and the rest on licence, the judge said the teenager was “entitled to look to her parents for support and protection, instead of which the defendant abuse her for his own sexual satisfaction.”

At an earlier hearing the 40-year-old, who cannot be identified to protect his traumatised victim, entered guilty pleas to a catalogue of sex offences including four counts of rape, three attempted rape, six of attempting to incite his daughter to engage in sexual activity, two of sexual assault involving penetration, one of attempted intimidation and three offences of taking and possessing an indecent image of a child, all committed on various dates between 31 December 2016 and 10 December 2018. 

The court heard that during the abuse, he told his daughter he would kill himself if she told anyone about it and also that he forced his daughter to take sexually explicit photographs of herself, including on one occasion when she was at school, under the threat of being raped and also that the victim was so traumatised, her mum “had to redecorate the entire house.”

Opening the facts of the Crown case, prosecuting QC Philip Mateer outlined how the defendant would often text his daughter to either summon her to a bedroom to be abused or to demand she send him explicit images of herself. 

The offences came to light when the girl’s school referred her to the Gateway social services team and they in turn alerted the police when the teenager disclosed what had been happening to her. 

Mr Mateer told the court how the girl described she was around 13 when her father first tried to rape her but he “couldn’t get it in.”

“He went back to the bathroom and she was crying during the assault,” said the barrister adding however that her father came back and forced her to touch his private parts. 

“She recalled that this behaviour ‘just kept going on’ and that it was escalating and she described it as getting worse,” he told the court. 

Judge Patrick Lynch QC heard that a “feature of the offending” was that the defendant had been “consuming alcohol and or illegal substances” when he committed the offences which were perpetrated in the girls home, her grandfathers home and in a caravan holiday. 

Mr Mateer described how the victim told police her father raped her and touched her inappropriately but that on each occasion, she told him “that it was painful.”

As regards aggravating features the senior lawyer revealed that according to reports about the victim, she has been left traumatised, has been undergoing counselling and “is struggling to accept both the abuse and the fact that her father had loved and cared for her.”

Mr Mateer submitted the level of harm caused to the girl was high as was the defendants culpability given the “gross breach of trust” towards his daughter, adding there were multiple other aggravating factors including the repeated bouts of abuse, the period of time over which the offences were committed, that she was abused in her own home where she “ought to have felt safe and secure.”

He argued that the judge could take account of the detrimental effect on other family members, outlining how the victim’s mum described the revelation of the abuse “like being a bomb going off in the house.”

Defence QC Gavan Duffy said he accepted “this is a very, very serious case and involved a gross breach of trust” but submitted the 40-year-old, who himself had allegedly been a sex abuse victim, had shown “genuine remorse and insight into the potential impact” of the abuse. 

Jailing the defendant today, Judge Lynch said while he accepted there was genuine remorse, that had to be seen in the balance of the “manifest aggravating features,” his high level of culpability and the significant harm he had caused the victim. 

In addition to the jail sentence the judge also imposed a ten year Sexual Offences Prevention Order which amongst the conditions bars the pervert from contacting his daughter, beginning a new “romantic or sexual relationship” without disclosing his convictions, from having contact with children and from residing at any address without approval.