Mother and partner to be sentenced later for rape and abuse of daughter (5) and son (3½)

A woman and her partner will be sentenced later for the rape and abuse of her five-year-old daughter and 3½-year-old son.

The Central Criminal Court heard the girl’s foster parents became concerned when on arriving to their home as a six-year-old child, she approached her foster father and tried to undo the belt of his trousers.

The foster mother said in a statement that within a matter of weeks the girl disclosed “the most unimaginable abuse” to them, and they in turn reported it to gardaí.

The investigating gardaí outlined that abuse to Anne Rowland SC, prosecuting, at the sentence hearing on Monday.

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This included an incident in which the then five-year-old girl said she was called into the bedroom by her mother to perform oral sex on the woman’s partner. During this incident, a garda said, the child was also sexually assaulted by her mother and made touch her mother’s “private area”.

The girl also recalled being tied to a chair while her mother and the man went to the pub. When asked by gardaí how she was tied to the chair, she said glue was used.

The court heard the girl’s younger brother later disclosed that after his sister was taken into care, he was awoken by the man during the night and made to perform oral sex on him. He was 3½ years old at the time.

The children’s mother (40) and her partner (52) stood trial last year having denied a number of offences including rape, oral rape, sexual assault, sexual exploitation, reckless endangerment and false imprisonment of the children at two locations in Connacht on dates between October 2012 and September 2014.

Following a six-week trial, the man was convicted last November of one count of raping the girl, six counts of oral rape and one count of falsely imprisoning her. He was found guilty of one charge of oral rape, one charge of anal rape and one charge of sexually assaulting the boy.

In relation to her daughter, the mother was convicted of four counts of sexually assaulting her, four counts of sexual exploitation, four counts of oral rape (on the basis of joint enterprise), one count of false imprisonment and one count of reckless endangerment. In relation to her son, the woman was convicted of one count of reckless endangerment.

The court heard the woman has a total of seven children, one of whom is now an adult. All of the other children are now in State care.

The foster mothers of the two children prepared victim impact statements for the court hearing, which were handed in along with reports from social workers.

The first foster mother, who took in the girl aged six, as her first foster placement, recalled that after the incident where she tried to undo the belt of her foster father’s trousers, the woman ensured the child was never alone with her husband. She said she kept this in place for the eight years the child lived with them.

She said when the girl first arrived, she had no control over her bladder or her bowels and would often soil herself. She would also find the child playing in her bedroom in the middle of the night, as she had trouble sleeping.

The woman said the girl behaved more like a three-year-old than a six-year-old which stopped her making friends with peers. She was also drawn to men in any situation where they went out.

This family also fostered the young boy. He was four when he came to live with them and the woman reported that he could not walk or talk properly and “went to the toilet wherever he was”. He would wake in the middle of the night screaming from night terrors and once “smeared faeces over his bedroom wall”.

She said what he suffered was “horrific and brutal and at the hands of those who should have been his protectors”.

The boy is now in his first year of secondary school and doing very well. He told his foster mother he is glad his mother and the man are in prison “so they can’t do the same to any other children” and he hopes they stay there. She said he tells his foster family that they saved his life.

The girl moved to another foster home as a young teenager, and that foster mother stated in her victim impact statement that the girl behaves “younger than her years”, describing her as “dancing wildly in her bedroom oblivious to her surroundings”. She said the girl tells her that dancing like this “helps to take away the pain from the top of my head”.

Mr Justice David Keane remanded the two accused in continuing custody and adjourned sentencing to March 13th.