Man jailed for abuse of his adopted daughter

AN 80-year-old man who sexually abused his adopted daughter on an almost daily basis for four years has been handed a fiveyear sentence.

Jailing the former businessman, Judge Gordon Kerr QC said that despite his guilty pleas, the pensionercontinuestoblamethe victim, claiming she was “sexually aware” and “manipulative”.

The judge told Belfast Crown Court: “She was adopted in to this family, was horribly abused and yet she was rejected by the family and forced into the child care system that the defendant had originally appeared to save her from.”

At a previous hearing, the court was told that despite an initial complainant about the man’s behaviour being made to police in 1985, there was “an astonishing lack of insight by the authorities at the time”.

No action was taken after a second report to the RUC two years later.

However, the case was reviewed by the PPS in 2016, and in June 2018 the defendant pleaded guilty to 18 counts of indecent assault — but blamed the victim, claiming she had been provocative and had “brought it on herself ”.

The man sexually abused his adopted daughter over a period from 1982 to 1985, when she was aged 11 to 14, with the incidents taking place in the family home in south Belfast, at a holiday home in Donegal and in the family car.

Crown barrister Kieran Murphy said the offending occurred “on an almost daily basis”, with the victim later given “rewards for sexual favours”.