Father, three sons sentenced next month in sex assault case

Father, three sons sentenced next month in sex assault case

A father and three sons will be sentenced next month for more than 100 counts of sexual assault and rape against four members of their family.

The oldest man’s wife and mother of the other three men will also be sentenced for assault and for helping one of her sons to conceal the rape of her granddaughter.

The victims told the court that their lives had been ruined by the family members who they described as monsters.

The court heard the convicted people, who are all members of an extended family and are part of the Travelling community, do not accept the jury’s guilty verdicts.

Victim impact statements on behalf of the two men and two women who were raped and abused as children by their cousins, uncle and grandfather were read to the court.

The offences took place between 1999 and 2004 when they were aged between seven and 17 years old.

The oldest convicted man, who is 66, is already serving a 16-year sentence for the rape and abuse of two of his daughters.

Victim impact statement

He is the father of his daughter’s eldest child. In this trial, she said she had also been raped and abused by three of her brothers three of four times a week from the age of around 12.

In her statement, she said that because of what they had done to her, her life would never be normal and she would never feel safe.

The man’s granddaughter said she had been raped twice by him and had also been raped by two of his sons. Her grandmother helped to conceal one of the rapes.

In her victim impact statement, this woman said her childhood and innocence had been stolen from her.

She said she had lived in fear all her life and wanted a normal peaceful life with her own family.

One of the men who was abused as a boy by the oldest man said words had not been invented to describe the pain the man had put him through.

He wondered if he had fought back hard enough would he have left him alone and that it took a lot of years for him to realise he was too young to do that.

Every moment was a struggle, he said.

‘No childhood’

The other boy said the family members were monsters. He said he had no childhood.

He also said he made sure that his children went to school and got an education so they would have the chance to have the life he never had.

All the victims said they had been starved, beaten and never got a chance to go to school.

The court heard the convicted men have more than 500 convictions between them while the woman has none.

She has also told probation officers she suffered domestic and sexual abuse at the hands of her husband.

None of them accept the jury’s guilty verdicts.

Judge Mary Ellen Ring said sexual abuse never goes away and lives with victims throughout their lives.

She said she had significant issues to consider and she would sentence the five next month.