A German man who raped his eight-year-old step-daughter has been jailed for 8 1/2 years.
Sentencing the man yesterday at the Central Criminal Court, Mr Justice O'Higgins said: "You abused a position of trust, and I am told the young girl is still suffering great psychological difficulties as a result of the offences. She will carry the scars into her adulthood."
The 54-year-old man pleaded guilty last year to one charge of raping the girl in June 1996 and one of sexually assaulting her in August 1995.
He had originally faced eight charges of rape and sexual assault.
Det Garda Fergal Foley told prosecution counsel, Mr Paul Coffey, the man had claimed he was sexually abused as a child in a German orphanage which was run by a Catholic religious order.
The defendant raped his step-daughter in Dublin in 1996 when the victim's mother was away visiting relatives. He made the girl and her 13-year-old brother watch a pornographic video and then asked the children to re-enact the scenes together. When the boy refused, the defendant took the girl upstairs and raped her. Her brother was forced to watch, too afraid to intervene.