Child abuser caught after contacting victim online

A VICTIM of child abuse complained to gardaí after her attacker contacted her on Instagram three years after the assaults ended, a court heard.

The abuse had stopped when a relationship between the man and the girl’s mother ended in 2012. It was reported to gardaí in 2015 when he liked a video she had uploaded to Instagram.

The Central Criminal Court heard the girl came into the family kitchen screaming, ‘He’s back, he’s back’, so the girl’s parents decided to tell gardaí about the abuse.

Her attacker, a Limerick man who cannot be identified for legal reasons, abused her in her home over the course of three years.

She was aged between six and nine at the time. Her attacker, who is now 46, also forced her to watch pornographic films with him.

The abuse came to light in 2013 when the girl wrote a note to her mother telling her: ‘I’ve been so scared to tell you this. I hope you won’t get cross.’

Her parents, who are separated amicably, agreed with their daughter not to report the abusing to gardaí at that time.

But in November 2015 the abuser contacted the victim online by liking a video she had put on Instagram so her parents alerted gardaí.

After a trial, a jury convicted the man of six counts of sexual assault and two of sexual exploitation of a child. He denied the offences.

Judge Tara Burns said the abuse by the man was extremely serious and was an extreme breach of trust.

She said the man gained the trust of the victim’s mother before she let him into her family home. The judge said the girl was vulnerable at the time as her parents’ marriage was breaking up.

She imposed a jail sentence of seven years for the most serious sexual assaults. She imposed concurrent terms of six and four years for other assaults, and sentences of two years for sexual exploitation.