Man admits to raping daughter over ten-year period while Mum was at bingo

Wicklow man raped daughter on a ‘daily basis’

A man has admitted to raping and sexually assaulting his daughter over a ten-year period while she was a child, according to RTE News.

Fiona Doyle (née O'Brien) said her father Patrick O'Brien, 72, raped her every night when her mother went out to play bingo.

Detective Garda Darragh Phelan told Monika Leech BL, prosecuting, that Ms Doyle described the abuse as being as frequent as having dinner every night and taking place every evening.

Ms Doyle said she would continue watching television while he raped her. She told gardaí she hated it but that she would turn herself into a zombie during each incident.

Waiving her right to anonymity, she told the Central Criminal Court that no sentence imposed on O'Brien could "undo the enormous damage that my father has done to me."

She said: "It is something I have lived with since I was a young child and it's something I will have to live with until the day I die."

The abuse began when O'Brien raped the victim on the night before she was to make her First Holy Communion when she was about seven years old.

Ms Doyle told the court: "There was none of the usual excitement you'd expect in a family home where such a big occasion was to happen the next day.

"My mother went off to bingo, leaving me at the mercy of my father. Almost certainly knowing what he would do to me. My father raped me that night. I remember lying in bed that night but being unable to sleep because of the pain."

As a result of the abuse, she attempted to change her own appearance through plastic surgery, saying: "I had many operations which I see now was a form of self-mutilation. I have the many scars to prove it."

Ms Doyle said her first marriage failed because of the abuse and she made two serious suicide attempts.

O'Brien, of Old Court Avenue, Bray, Co Wicklow pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to 16 charges of the rape and indecent assault of Ms Doyle at Mackintosh Park, Pottery Road, Dún Laoghaire from 1973 to 1982.

O'Brien initially denied the allegations and told gardaí she was making them up because "I was very hard on her because of the way she was dressing."

He later admitted abusing her at least once a week for ten years and said it "became normal." He said he knew it was wrong but kept doing it.

He told gardaí: "I'm sorry for what happened, especially her, because she was good to us."
Detective Phelan told the court: "It may be the only time he showed remorse."

When the family decided to move to England, Ms Doyle was told to stay behind with her father and he moved her into his bedroom and began abusing her "whenever it suited him."

Ms Doyle said she believes her mother knew about the abuse and that she was cast as "the other woman" in an "evil marriage."

Detective Phelan said there was a culture of fear and violence in the home and that Ms Doyle's mother would call her a whore while beating her.

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Nster.com