A 47-year-old man has been jailed for two and a half years for sexually assaulting his stepdaughter.

George Crombie of Bloomfield Avenue on South Circular Road in Dublin 8 admitted eight counts of abuse between February 2004 and December 2006.

Laura Johnston decided to waive her right to anonymity so Crombie could be named.

In an emotional victim impact statement, which she read out in front of him last week, she outlined how he had betrayed her trust and love in him.

Ms Johnston only found out he was not her natural father when she was 10 - the court heard the abuse started soon afterwards.

He would assault her in her bedroom while her mother was asleep - on one occasion, he put a dog lead around her neck.

She described being petrified when he came in one night with a knife in the waistband of his pyjama bottoms.

Judge Melanie Greally described the abuse as "unrelenting and predictable".

It would happen every Thursday and Saturday night after he had been drinking.

It stopped when she was 13 and threatened to tell her mother.

She made a complaint to gardaí last year, and he admitted everything following his arrest.

Ms Johnston was back in court today to see him being jailed for two and a half years.