A FORMER MEMBER of the Irish Defence Forces has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting a child multiple times over a period of several years.

The 63-year-old pleaded guilty to five counts of sexual assault on dates between September 2007 and June 2010 at an address in Cavan. He was jailed today for 10 years.

The Dublin man cannot be named to protect the anonymity of the victim, who was aged between 11 and 14 at the time.

The Central Criminal Court heard that the pleas were accepted by the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) on a full facts basis.

The man has 17 previous convictions including for criminal damage, possession of knives and the sexual assault of two minors, which occurred before this offending.

Imposing sentence today, Justice David Keane said the disparity in ages and the impact on the victim were among the aggravating factors.

The judge said the man was “extremely fortunate” that the DPP accepted his guilty pleas to sexual assault on a full facts basis as “the acts could have been charged as offences of anal or oral rape” which have a maximum sentence of life in prison.

Sexual assault of a child under 17 has a maximum penalty of 14 years imprisonment.

Evidence was heard that the man was friendly with the boy’s older brother, who was experiencing mental health difficulties at the time.

The boy’s brother had moved to a house in Cavan owned by the man. The defendant would take the boy to visit his brother.

The court heard evidence of the abuse, including an incident during which the boy vomited as the man sexually assaulted him. The man made him clean it up afterwards.

In a later incident, the man held the boy’s neck, told him he was going to introduce him to rough sex, then sexually assaulted him.

The judge noted the contents of the injured party’s “simple but powerful” victim impact statement.

He noted the complainant wrongly blamed himself for years and had misplaced feelings of shame. The abuse also affected the complainant’s relationship with his brother, who he did not want to visit often. The boy was told his failure to visit his brother was affecting his brother’s mental health.

Referring to the victim impact statement, the judge said the boy was robbed of his relationship with his brother who has since died and felt he could not visit his grave as it would bring back memories of the abuse.

Justice Keane noted that the injured party is now able to honour his brother’s life by sharing memories of him.

The judge noted a defence submission that the offending could be considered opportunistic and intermittent over the period in question. He said while the abuse was limited to occasions when the boy visited his brother’s house, “significant planning and cunning” was involved to isolate the child.

Justice Keane noted the contents of the probation report and that the man told a probation officer that he was not guilty of this category of offending, denied contact or described it as minimal and said he believed the boy was an adult.

The judge said the report states the man engaged in victim blaming and displayed no empathy. He noted that the man told the probation officer that he does not wish to interact with Probation Services and did not give consent for them to speak to his family, who are unaware of the nature of his offending.

Justice Keane referred to an undated letter from the man addressed to the victim and “their family”, in which the man took responsibility and outlined his shame and guilt. But, the judge noted this letter referred to a singular sexual assault.

He also referred to a letter written by the man in 2014 to the victim while he was in the Midlands Prison, in which he said he was taking courses in anger management and preventing sexual offending.

The judge noted there is no independent confirmation that the man undertook or completed these courses.

Two unsigned letters from the man’s brother and father were also provided to the court, which said the man has mental health and other health issues.

The judge said these letters were not on affidavit as required by law and the court could not take them into consideration.

Justice Keane said there was “no independent medical evidence” or details of the man’s service in the Irish Defence Forces before the court.

Having imposed the 10-year global sentence for the man’s offending, Justice Keane said there was no basis on which to suspend any part of the sentence and he imposed a two-year post release supervision order.

The court heard that the boy was afraid of his father, who passed away in the mid 2010s. The boy’s brother died in 2011. He told his mother about the incidents in 2016 and his partner in 2018, before making a formal complaint in 2021.

When interviewed, the man made no admissions, denied that he knew the boy and said everyone’s time was being wasted.

The judge backdated the sentence to last October, when the man went into custody.