Donegal man jailed for eight years for the rape and sexual assault of partners daughter

A Donegal man who raped and sexually assaulted the daughter of his former partner over a period of at least five years has been jailed for eight years.
The 52-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told gardaí he had “no knowledge” or recollection of abusing the child, but that he did not doubt she was telling the truth.
The man was charged with rape, sexual assault and producing child pornography.
The court heard that the abuse took place over a number of years, when the child was aged between 4 and 9 years of age.
The investigating guard told Róisín Lacey SC, prosecuting, that the abuse came to light in 2014 after the girl’s school principal became concerned that she was at risk of self-harm.
The girl, then aged 13, made allegations of repeated sexual abuse by the accused while she had been staying with him.
The man was the former partner of the victim’s mother and also the father of her younger sister whom she stayed overnight with at his home on a regular basis.
On the day of his scheduled trial in April, the man pleaded guilty to having sexually assaulted the child in 2006 at his home, when she was four years old.
He later pleaded guilty to six further counts of sexually assaulting the child when she was aged between four and nine years old on dates between March 2008 and August 2011 and to one count of knowingly producing child pornography for the purpose of distribution, exportation, sale or show on an unknown date between August 2007 and August 2008.
The court heard that a home video recorded by the accused on a camcorder surfaced during a separate and unconnected investigation when gardaí found the video in the man’s house.
The victim told the court that she has no memory of the 30 minute video being filmed.
In her victim impact statement the teenage girl said every area of her life had been affected by the abuse.
The accused’s barrister said that the man told gardaí he had “no knowledge” of having committed the abuse, but that he had “absolutely no doubt” that the victim was telling the truth and that she was honest.