A Co Tipperary woman arranged for her lover to have sex with her teenage daughters when he threatened to leave her for a younger woman. Both daughters had babies soon after and one was brought up by the couple as their own son. He learned his true identity only when he was 21. The couple married some years after his birth and remained together until the woman died.
Her husband pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to raping the then 15-year-old girls on dates in 1969 and 1970 and was jailed for seven years. Passing sentence, Mr Justice Carney said: "It may be that the person who might be considered the more depraved is not before the court and is now not amenable to it. If the facts of this case were stated in a work of fiction, they could be considered unbelievable".
Mr Justice Carney said that if the man had been convicted by a jury, the sentence might have been in double figures. The victim impact reports and the evidence from one of the victims showed what happened had a devastating effect on the family. Garda John O'Connor told the court that the victim whose son was reared by the defendant and her mother "despised" her mother for what she had done.
The woman said the incidents had created great tension in the family and made life difficult for them for 24 years.
Prosecution counsel Mr Kenneth Mills SC (with Mr Fergal Kavanagh), in his outline of the case, described it as "a lamentable exploitation" of her daughters by their mother.
Garda O'Connor said the defendant met the girls' mother in a dance hall and began a relationship with her. When he told her he didn't want to make it permanent because she was 12 years older than him, she pleaded with him to stay with her if he had sex with her daughters.
The woman told her daughters she wanted them to agree to his wishes. He had sex with one girl in a bedroom after her mother took her home from work for that purpose. He had said he would leave unless he got what he wanted.
The girl had no idea what he was going to do when he undressed and then removed her underwear. He had sex with her for about 15 minutes and she asked him to stop. He continued and then gave her two half-crowns when he finished. He told her not to say anything about it.
Garda O'Connor said while this was happening the victim's mother was attending bingo. The baby son was born as a result of that episode.
The second victim was taken to meet the defendant in a car in a nearby park in the town where she worked. Her mother told her to do what her lover wanted or he would leave the family and then went walking around the park with her youngest son.
When she returned to the car she found that nothing had happened and got her daughter to take off her underwear and lie across the back seat.
The defendant told the girl her mother wanted him to find out if she was virgin and then had sexual intercourse on the seat.
This victim had a baby in due course but it wasn't clear who the father was. The baby was taken from her and adopted before she really knew what happened. Garda O'Connor said the defendant made a statement which concurred with the allegations.
He said he had abided by his promise to remain with the woman as his part of the bargain. He had told the mother of his son he would marry her but she told him to stay with her mother.
Defence counsel Ms Maureen Clark SC said she had never a case like this. Her client naively believed the girls were old enough for him to have sex with them as his part of bargain. "He gave his word and stuck by it and brought up the child that was clearly his," she said.
Ms Clark said psychiatric reports showed he still had little insight into the hurt and distress caused to the victims but indicated he had no paedophile tendencies and was not a danger to society. He had remorse now and realised now that girls of 15 cannot consent to sex even if their mother pushes them into it.