Warning: This article contains content that some readers may find upsetting.
A jury has found a man guilty of raping his son at their Waterford home.
The man, who cannot be named to protect the boy’s identity, was also convicted of cruelty.
The boy, who is now 12, was taken into care in 2011.
The court heard he began displaying disturbing, sexualised behaviour and eventually confided in his foster mother.
It was decided to move him into specialised care in the UK. Before he left, he told his foster mother he felt “like a dog that nobody wants.”
After deliberating for just over seven hours, the jury found his father guilty of nine charges of rape between 2009 and 2011.
He was also found guilty of cruelty by locking him into a cage-like box for hours but acquitted of nine charges of sexual assault.
His mother was cleared of two charges of sexual assault this afternoon, but the twelve men and women of the jury will be back on Monday to resume their deliberations on her single outstanding charge – an allegation of cruelty against her son.
