A former US marine who molested his niece when she was a child has been handed down a 12 year sentence.

The court heard his victim still locks her bedroom door at night, 20 years after Eamonn McCall tried to rape her as a young girl at her family home in Carlow.

Mr. McCall first molested his niece before her Holy Communion in 1990 when she was 7-years-old and he was 16.

Mr. Justice Paul Carney said the woman's victim impact report was 'one of the most harrowing ever received' by the court. In it, she said her uncle was 'a cancer who had shown no contrition, no remorse'.

'I wish he would do everyone a favour and go away and die', she said. She wanted Eamon McCall to be named so 'the world can know he is an abuser'.

The victim said McCall had robbed her of her right to live in her home town because she can only bear to spend a few nights there, acknowledging that if it were not for her parents she would never go back.

She spoke of her rage and described it as 'useless anger' over what McCall had done to her.

She said she often thought if she had locked her bedroom door in December 1994, the night of the attempted rape, McCall would not have been able to get her for 'that last time'.

Garda Niall Maloney told Derek Cooney BL, prosecuting, that the victim first made the allegations to gardaí in 2010 and McCall was arrested in Jun 2012. He was interviewed twice and made admissions.

The former marine (40) with a Dublin address on the North Circular Road appeared in court with severe facial injuries.

His barrister said he had been badly beaten in prison after other inmates discovered the nature of his crimes.

He has been handed down a 12 year sentence with the final two years suspended.