A woman broke down and cried in the Crown Court in Derry yesterday when a Co Donegal pensioner who sexually abused her and her two sisters over a 10-year period starting more than 40 years ago, was jailed for 2½ years.
John Callaghan (71) from Drung in Quigley's Point, showed no reaction when Judge Philip Babington jailed him for what the judge described as appalling abusive behaviour.
Callaghan, who had no previous criminal convictions, pleaded guilty to 14 charges of indecently assaulting the three sisters in the homes of family members and friends in Derry between January 1972 and January 1982.
The sisters were aged six, nine and 11 respectively when Callaghan started abusing them.
They first reported the abuse to a social worker in Letterkenny hospital in July 2014 and then made formal statements of complaint to the PSNI in Derry the following August and September.
Last March, Callaghan was arrested by gardaí and after he was handed over to the PSNI he was interviewed and denied the allegations saying: “I never interfered with anybody.”
He later pleaded guilty to the offences and told a consultant psychiatrist during the preparation of a presentence report: “I didn’t think it was any harm, I didn’t think there was any harm in it.”
The court was told that Callaghan now accepted that what he did was wrong and he apologised to his three victims.
The judge said that victim-impact reports stated that the three sisters had been deeply affected by the abuse and that they might require professional counselling in the future. He said Callaghan’s abuse of his victims had a destructive effect on their family.