A “dangerous fantasist” who subjected his young daughter to a sustained campaign of “relentless and systematic” cruelty has been jailed for six years.
The Central Criminal Court heard that the 51-year-old man pleaded guilty, minutes before his trial was due to begin earlier this year, to eight counts of child cruelty on dates between September 2009 and December 2015.
The maximum sentence for this offence is seven years’ imprisonment.
The victim was aged between four and eleven at the time of the offending, which occurred at locations in Munster. The man has no previous convictions.
Charges
The charges include assault, failing to provide adequate heating, food and accommodation, bullying, and causing her to be assaulted by her siblings.
Imposing a six-year sentence on Thursday, Mr Justice David Keane said the facts of this case were “heartbreaking and deeply disturbing”.
He said the evidence was that the man appeared to have a “deep apathy” towards the girl and said the aggravating features of this case include the “extremely high level of abuse of trust involved”, describing the cruelty of a parent towards a child as “especially abhorrent”.
Mr Justice Keane said he could only take into account the man's “admitted criminal conduct” when imposing sentence.
He said other aggravating features include the “relentless and systematic” nature of the cruelty, its broad range and the sustained period of time over which the offending occurred.
He further said the “relative vulnerability” of the young girl and the “grave psychological damage” caused to her are also aggravating features.
Mr Justice Keane noted that the man did plead guilty, but this came in circumstances where the girl was not in a position to give evidence. He added that there has been no apology or expression of remorse.
Dangerous fantasist
He said he couldn't agree with the defence's suggestion that the man was a “Walter Mitty-like" character. The judge said Walter Mitty was a “harmless and ineffectual fantasist”, but the man is a “dangerous fantasist with a predisposition to act out”.
He said that the man is an Irish citizen but made numerous claims to social workers, including that he was an American citizen, had served in the US armed forces and was a Satanist.
Setting a headline sentence of seven years, the judge imposed a global sentence of six years to mark the range of offending and the “exceptional sadism” of some of the offences, which implicated the whole family.
He declined to suspend any part of the sentence as the man had not expressed remorse or indicated a willingness to engage with services.
He noted the evidence was that the child's mother was “devoted” to her partner and put his needs first “to the detriment of the children”.
He commended the girl for her “resilience” in following through the criminal process and expressed the court's “sincere hope” that she can recover from the “terrible ordeal and relentless cruelty” she experienced as a child.
An investigating garda told Anne Rowland, SC, prosecuting, that numerous public health nurses raised concerns over the inadequate clothing and heating in the home that the defendant shared with his partner and children.
Social services visits
Social services also had interactions with the family.
The court heard that the man told his daughter's teacher that she was a “vindictive, spiteful bitch” when she was aged six years. He later told a social care worker that she was “mentally retarded” and “sexualised”.
He further said that his daughter had tried to burn the house down and to poison the family. He also said that the child was dead to him, and he dug a grave and put a headstone on it.
During an unplanned visit, the defendant told a social care worker that he had killed people and that if he had a gun, he would have killed one hundred more.
The court heard that when social care workers called to the family home on one occasion, they could not find any toiletries or toilet roll in the house.
They noted that, on other occasions, there were no sheets on the children’s beds or clothes in the wardrobe.
The child's mother was asked to show the social care worker where the children's socks and underwear were, and she was unable to find one pair of socks.
The court heard that the girl was taken into care in 2015, and her sibling was also taken into care the following year. When she arrived at her foster home, the girl was wearing clothes that were too small for her and didn't know how to complete certain personal hygiene tasks.
One of her siblings gave a statement to gardaí when she was nine and described their father lifting her sister off the ground by the throat. She said he would mess with her sister's food by making it extremely spicy or putting toothpaste in it.
On one occasion, he made pancakes for the family but wiped the injured party's pancake off the floor and the side of the dirty washing machine, then made her eat it.
The sibling of the girl told gardaí that he would hit her sister sometimes with his hands or with a wooden spoon. She said that when he would hit her, the rest of the children were expected to laugh. He would make the girl's siblings slap her in the face. He would put his walking stick to the child's neck, and their mother would never intervene.
The court heard that the man gave the appearance that he was in pain and used a walking stick. However, the injured party in this case said in her impact statement that her father would use a walking stick when outside and discard it when he came into the house.
The defendant was arrested and interviewed on seven occasions but denied any wrongdoing.
Victim impact statement
In her victim impact statement, which was read to the court by counsel, the girl described how her father “made my life hell and not worth living”. She said, “All I knew was fear and pain.”
She described “learning not to cry when I got hit because I would only get hit harder,” and how her father “would laugh when I would wet myself from the hitting”.
The girl said she has struggled with mental health issues and described her childhood as “stolen”.
She said, “The words mom and dad mean nothing to me”, and said, “The people who brought me into this life made my life hell.”
The garda agreed with Seamus Clarke, SC defending, that his client did plead guilty, but pointed out that this occurred five minutes before the trial was due to begin.
The garda agreed with counsel that the man does not seem to have a history of employment and has no previous convictions.
Mr Clarke said his client had not come to any adverse attention outside of this case.
Counsel handed a letter from the man’s GP into the court, which outlined some of his medical conditions and his use of a wheelchair.
On Thursday, Mr Justice Keane said he took into consideration the contents of a GP letter, which outlined the man suffers from a number of health conditions and is a wheelchair user due to neurological symptoms. The judge said he was satisfied the Irish Prison Service could provide any medical attention the man may need and issued this direction at the request of the defence.
Under the provisions of the Children's Act, the man cannot be named or any details of the case published which may identify the child.
