A girl was sexually abused and exploited from the age of six by three of her older brothers in a highly dysfunctional home in Connacht, the CentralOne of the girl’s brothers, who is now aged 26, was on Monday jailed for four years for six sample counts of sexual assault and one count of anally raping the girl over a five year period between 2007 and 2011.
Last month, a judge in a Connacht court handed down sentences of three-and-a-half years and two years to the men but the sentence was deferred and the case was adjourned to January next year.Sentencing the first brother on Monday, Mr Justice Paul McDermott said it took “enormous personal courage” on the part of the victim to come forward to gardaí about the abuse she had suffered.
The now 19-year-old woman was not in court for her brother’s sentence. “She said she wouldn’t be able to face him,” a garda liaison officer told the court earlier this month.