Sentence for sex abuse of sisters 'out of proportion'

The Rape Crisis Network has condemned as "out of all proportion" decisions by two different judges to send one man to prison for a year and give the other no jail time for sexually abusing their sisters.

At the Central Criminal Court Justice Paul Butler sentenced a man, aged 50, to four years for raping his two younger sisters when he was 14. However, he suspended the last three years.

He was found guilty of four counts, one each of rape and indecent assault of each sister on dates in 1971 and 1972. The court heard he told the older sister to go into a bedroom and to undress before he hit and raped her. He told her to send in her younger sister who was also raped.

One sister claimed he raped her “100 times a year and 800 times in total”.

Mr Justice Butler said he took into account the man was 14 at the time and was not at risk of reoffending.

In the second case, a 57-year-old man was given a suspended jail term at Wicklow Circuit Court after pleading guilty to 10 counts of sexual abuse of his younger sisters between 1965 and 1975 in Dublin and Wicklow when he was 14. One sister was 11 years, the other seven years.

He imposed a one-year sentence on the first count and concurrent two-and-a-half-year sentence on each of the other counts. But he suspended all sentences on the defendant entering a bond to keep the peace.

Fiona Neary of Rape Crisis Network Ireland said there were striking similarities in these cases.

By Stephen Rodgers, Irish Examiner

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