An Englishman who raped his daughter after travelling to Cork to meet her for the first time in 19 years has been jailed for 10 years by Mr Justice Diarmuid O'Donovan at the Central Criminal Court.
Patrick O'Riordan (45), hadn't seen his daughter, Emma, since 1982, when she moved, aged three years, to Ireland with her Cork-born mother. The parents divorced in 1985.
Ms Emma O'Riordan (24), told the court she wanted her father named in the media to prevent any other girl going through what she'd been through in the past three years.
She contacted him in England in June 2001, when she was aged 22, and he arranged to go to Cork to meet her. He booked a three-day stay in a B&B and met up with her that evening.
The court heard they went for a meal and then played some pool before going on to a club. When they left the club he took Emma back to his room in the B&B and insisted that she stayed the night.
The arrangement was that she would sleep in the bed and he would sleep on the floor but he came out of the bathroom and raped her.
Afterwards she grabbed her jacket and bag and ran out of the room. A night porter met her in a very distressed state and called the gardaí but when they arrived O'Riordan had already taken a taxi to Cork Airport. He was arrested at the airport before boarding a flight to England.
He initially denied to gardaí that anything of a sexual nature occurred but later said he did have sexual intercourse with his daughter but claimed it was consensual.
O'Riordan, formerly from Shirland Road, London, pleaded guilty to two counts of rape.
The court heard he spent three months in custody before being given High Court bail, the conditions of which allowed him to return to England. He then pleaded guilty formally to the offences on his trial date in February 2003 but failed to appear for sentence on May 9th, 2003.
He was extradited back from England on March 9th of this year and had been in custody since.
Ms O'Riordan told the court: "I want him named because when he comes out of prison and attempts this again someone will remember his name or know his face. If he could do this to his own daughter he could do it to someone else. I don't want anybody else to go through what I've gone through.
Mr Justice O'Donovan suspended the last year because O'Riordan had pleaded guilty.