The founder of a long-running pirate radio station, Radio Dublin, has been jailed for 10 years by Mr Justice Quirke for sexually assaulting young girls.
Eamonn "Captain" Cooke (66), a married man with addresses at Heatherview Avenue, Tallaght, Dublin, and Wheatfields Court, Clondalkin was convicted last December by a Central Criminal Court jury on 33 charges after a 15-day trial.
The jury took just under three hours to return unanimous guilty verdicts of one charge each of attempted unlawful carnal knowledge and attempted rape of two of the girls, and a further 31 charges of indecent assault involving them and two other girls.
Mr Justice Quirke told Cooke he could find no mitigating circumstances in any of the convictions and said he had shown no remorse for the enormous damage his actions had on the lives of his victims.
He gave Cooke a 10-year sentence for attempted rape of one of the girls, and four years for attempted unlawful carnal knowledge of another.
This term was made consecutive to a sentence of five years on the sexual and indecent assaults counts.
One of the women earlier told the court that while Cooke's time in jail would in no way compare to the sentence that had been imposed on their lives, he would at least not be able to satisfy his sexual desires for children.
Another victim said the trial had been very traumatic for all of the complainants, especially when Cooke's defence counsel, Mr Blaise O'Carroll SC, called her "evil" when he was summing up to the jury.
She said she realised his legal team were just doing their job but felt that was going a bit too far.
She added that she was sure the victims in this case were just the tip of the iceberg of the children abused by Cooke and she hoped this court case would encourage them to come forward.
All of the girls were under 15-years-of-age at the time and some were as young as six-years-old when the abuse began. Insp Gerard Kelly told prosecuting counsel Mr Patrick J McCarthy SC that Cooke had eight previous convictions spanning 51 years for shooting with intent, possession of firearms, arson, malicious damage, dangerous driving and contempt of court.
He was jailed for five years for the shooting with intent and possession of firearms charges in 1957 and for six months for the dangerous driving offence in 2001.
Gardaí found he had four of his children in the car after a high-speed chase. He served 21 days' imprisonment for contempt of court in 2001 also.
There was a gap of 30 years in which he had no convictions.
Insp Kelly told Mr McCarthy (with Ms Isobel Kennedy BL) that the evidence showed Cooke's house had been a "free-for-all" for all the young children in the neighbourhood.
Children would play in his garage and the sexual abuse only began as a very gradual process. At first he let them play with electronic gadgets such as cameras, televisions and telephones.
He then rented out videos and sat each of the girls on his lap.
He would put a rug over both himself and the girl and put his hands inside her underwear.
Cooke gradually began to invite the girls to his bedroom and make them get into his bed. Two of the girls were friends and he would put them both in his bed together with him, naked.
He would fondle both at the same time, as well make them perform oral sex on him and vice versa.
He would give them money and sweets, mostly money which amounted to two pence, five pence and 10 pence coins.
He would also play the two friends against each other, asking each of them to come individually to his house when the other was not there.
The girls said they had been unaware at the time of what was happening or that it was wrong.
As the abuse had begun gradually, and they had been made to feel comfortable around him, they did not complain, and would accept the money and sweets he gave them.
The other two complainants are sisters but told the jury they did not go to Cooke's house at the same time.
The younger sister went first when she met Cooke's son but stopped soon after her sister started visiting the house as she had become afraid of the man, the court was told.
The jury also heard a man who worked with Cooke in Radio Dublin recall that the majority of the staff left the station when they heard of the abuse.