A Co Donegal bus driver has pleaded guilty to 11 charges of sexual assault against two sisters during which he tricked them into playing “sweet games” while he abused them.
Leo McFarland had originally pleaded not guilty to a total of 53 charges against sisters Cathy and Caroline Brady in Carndonagh when they were children between 1983 and 1985.
However McFarland (57), a father-of-five, changed his plea and admitted to 11 of the charges against the women.
The sisters told Letterkenny Circuit Court they would like to waive their anonymity in order for McFarland to be identified.
The women were indecently assaulted by McFarland in the kitchen of his home in the Inishowen town of Carndonagh and in his mini-bus during the 1980s.
One of them was assaulted when aged between 5 and 7 years and the other between 7 and 9 years.
Cathy Brady (37) told how McFarland would ask them to look for sweets in his trouser pocket which would have a hole in it.
“He would say ‘move about more and more and squeeze and look for it’. It was his penis... He would then go to the press and get the sweets. They were never in his pockets.”
She also revealed how McFarland sexually interfered with her in his mini-bus.
Judge John O’Hagan ordered that McFarland, who now lives Oak Grove, Millfield, Buncrana, be placed on the sex offenders register.
He was released on bail pending sentencing in April.