A Derry man has been jailed for more than 10 years for the sexual and physical abuse of three children.
At Derry Crown Court, Judge Philip Babington described as disturbing how reports were made to the police and to social workers about the abuse, but no action was taken at the time.
He jailed the 60-year-old man for for 10 and a half years for what a probation officer described as “a harrowing catalogue of physical abuse which makes difficult reading”.
The defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to three charges of child cruelty against his daughter and two sons, guilty to two charges of common assault and guilty to seven charges of forcing his daughter to perform sex acts on him, starting when she was aged six.
He committed the offences in the family’s Co Derry home over a 14-year period starting in March 1980.
The defendant’s three children were placed in a children’s home in England following the break-up of his marriage.
However, in the late 1970s he removed his children from the home and brought them back to Northern Ireland where he started to abuse them.
A prosecution barrister said the abuser, a former British soldier, lined up his children “like mini soldiers” and beat them with a brass poker, a brush staff and with a belt. He threatened to kill them if they reported the abuse to the authorities.
On one occasion when his primary school daughter tried to fight back, her father pinned her against the living room wall and grabbed her by the neck, forcing her to “slid down the wall like a sack of potatoes” before forcing her to perform a sex act on him.
On another occasion the young girl tried to flee her father by climbing out of a window but he caught her and, said Judge Babington, “battered the life out of her with a poker”.
A victim impact report from one of the boys abused said: “It was like at times that all of us, the three children, were in the military. Disobedience or defiance was immediately responded to by a beating. I would say that literally we were brought up like slaves.”
The abuser’s daughter, in her victim impact report said her father ran the house like an army camp and everyone had to do what he said or be beaten. “No compassion was ever shown by him, he expected uncompromising obedience with no resistance,” she said.
Judge Babington said when the abuser was interviewed by the police about the allegations in April 2014, he described his childrens’ allegations as “ridiculous and lies. He suggested they had collaborated together and described himself as “a great father”. However, on the morning his trial began last month, he admitted all 12 offences.
“It seems that the boys were subjected to physical abuse from the ages of three and four and in the case of one it lasted some 12 years and in respect of the other brother it lasted for some 13 years,” the judge said.
“As far as his daughter was concerned, she suffered physical abuse for some 10 years and sexual abuse for some seven years”, he said.
“The sexual abuse was bound up with physical abuse, both threatened and actually carried out. She was told she would be killed if she said anything. She says she was terrified of her father.
“ The actual sexual abuse was particularly violent and disgusting. It is clear that the defendant treated her and her two brothers in ways that are difficult to believe let alone understand,” Judge Babington added.
“Even more disturbing was the fact that injuries were observed by other adults and reports made to police and social workers but no action was taken,” he said.
As well as jailing the abuser, Judge Babington also placed him on the Sex Offender’s Register for an indefinite period and imposed a Sexual Offences Prevention Order, also for an indefinite period.