Man admits to raping daughter over ten-year period while Mum was at bingo Wicklow man raped daughter on a ‘daily basis’ By RACHAEL LAIRD, IrishCentral Intern
Published Wednesday, January 16, 2013
A man has admitted to raping and sexually assaulting his daughter over a ten-year period while she was a child, according to RTE News.
Fiona Doyle (née O'Brien) said her father Patrick O'Brien, 72, raped her every night when her mother went out to play bingo.
Detective
Garda Darragh Phelan told Monika Leech BL, prosecuting, that Ms Doyle
described the abuse as being as frequent as having dinner every night
and taking place every evening.
Ms Doyle
said she would continue watching television while he raped her. She
told gardaí she hated it but that she would turn herself into a zombie
during each incident.
Waiving her right
to anonymity, she told the Central Criminal Court that no sentence
imposed on O'Brien could "undo the enormous damage that my father has
done to me."
She said: "It is something I
have lived with since I was a young child and it's something I will
have to live with until the day I die."
The
abuse began when O'Brien raped the victim on the night before she was
to make her First Holy Communion when she was about seven years old.
Ms
Doyle told the court: "There was none of the usual excitement you'd
expect in a family home where such a big occasion was to happen the next
day.
"My mother went off to bingo,
leaving me at the mercy of my father. Almost certainly knowing what he
would do to me. My father raped me that night. I remember lying in bed
that night but being unable to sleep because of the pain."
As
a result of the abuse, she attempted to change her own appearance
through plastic surgery, saying: "I had many operations which I see now
was a form of self-mutilation. I have the many scars to prove it."
Ms Doyle said her first marriage failed because of the abuse and she made two serious suicide attempts.
O'Brien,
of Old Court Avenue, Bray, Co Wicklow pleaded guilty at the Central
Criminal Court to 16 charges of the rape and indecent assault of Ms
Doyle at Mackintosh Park, Pottery Road, Dún Laoghaire [Ireland] from 1973 to 1982.
O'Brien
initially denied the allegations and told gardaí she was making them up
because "I was very hard on her because of the way she was dressing."
He
later admitted abusing her at least once a week for ten years and said
it "became normal." He said he knew it was wrong but kept doing it.
He told gardaí: "I'm sorry for what happened, especially her, because she was good to us."
Detective Phelan told the court: "It may be the only time he showed remorse."
When
the family decided to move to England, Ms Doyle was told to stay behind
with her father and he moved her into his bedroom and began abusing her
"whenever it suited him."
Ms Doyle said she believes her mother knew about the abuse and that she was cast as "the other woman" in an "evil marriage."
Detective
Phelan said there was a culture of fear and violence in the home and
that Ms Doyle's mother would call her a whore while beating her.
Mary Rose Gearty SC, defending, said that
her client is an elderly man in "extremely poor health" who has taken
full responsibility for these grave offences.
She
said he suffers from arthritis and is in ongoing and constant pain for
which he wears a morphine patch. He falls regularly and currently has
some broken ribs due to a recent fall.
She
said he receives eight hours of oxygen as he sleeps at night, has a
heart condition and takes over 15 different tablets each day.
She said he made "genuinely helpful" admissions and entered a guilty plea instead of "cynically" trying to sit and wait it out.
Mr
Justice Carney initially remanded O'Brien in custody for sentencing
next Monday but after hearing from Ms Gearty that her client is not a
flight risk he remanded him on continuing bail until then.
Mr Justice Carney said that he was doing this "provided no hope is read into it."
posted by Neale Sourna @ January 17, 2013
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