A German businessman has been sentenced to three and half years in prison for sexually abusing a six-year-old girl in Co Offaly 17 years ago.
But Dr Andreas Ernst Lewicki, a 68-year-old electronics engineer, walked free after the verdict in the court in the southern German city of Ulm today. He was released because of time he had already served awaiting trial
Lewicki, who owned Lewicki Microelectronics in Spollanstown Industrial Estate in Tullamore in 1977, sexually abused the girl on two occasions in 1985 and recorded the abuse.
He sold his company a year after the alleged abuse took place but stayed on as a consultant for 18 months. He was arrested in Manila in 1995 and charged with sexual abuse of a minor, but fled the Phillipines on bail.
A year later, in September 1996, he was arrested in the Czech Republic and found guilty of a child sex offence. After inquiries from Czech police, Swiss authorities searched the victim's residence in Zürich and found evidence of child pornography production.
Days later they discovered video tape spools in a safe deposit box in a Zürich bank. The tapes were passed first to German authorities and then to the Garda in Dublin.
It is the first Irish abuse case to be tried outside the jurisdiction.