A man has been jailed for eight and a half years for the repeated sexual assault of a four-year-old child, whom his wife was babysitting.
The man’s trial saw one of the youngest complainants ever giving evidence before a criminal trial in this country.
The man, who is in his late 50s, can’t be identified to protect the identity of the young girl he abused.
Last January, he was convicted of two charges of sexually assaulting her at his home in Dublin between July 2016 and July 2017.
His family had been friendly for years with the girl’s mother, and the trial heard his daughter and wife used to babysit her.
During the summer of 2017, the girl told her mother what the man was doing to her, and she was interviewed by specially trained gardaí.
Judge Elma Sheahan described what he did as an “egregious breach of trust” on a vulnerable child.
In a victim impact statement delivered by the child’s mother, she said she worried about the day when her daughter gained a greater understanding of the abuse inflicted her.
The man, who continues to maintain his innocence and refuses to accept the jury’s verdicts, was jailed today for eight and a half years.
