Mother ‘destroyed evidence’ after fiancé raped her daughter

A MEATH mother destroyed evidence after her daughter told her she had been raped by the woman’s fiancé, a court has heard.

The 39-year-old man began sexually abusing three of the woman’s daughters shortly after moving into the family home.

The Central Criminal Court heard that in the case of one of the victims, the abuse progressed from molestation to an incident of rape when he attacked the 15-year-old as she lay sick in bed. The next day the girl told her mother what had happened.

Her fiancé was confronted and his father told him they needed to make a report to gardaí.

The woman and her fiancé left the house to go to the garda station. The woman told the trial that outside the station the man falsely told her it was her daughter who had touched him first and she decided not to tell gardaí.

When she returned home, she washed the bedclothes and the clothes from the scene of the rape.

The next day she brought her daughter to the GP to get the morning-after pill. She claimed to the GP the girl had had consensual sex with a 17-yearold boy.

Gardaí eventually became involved when the girl’s school became concerned and notified the HSE. The children were taken into care and the man moved out of the family home.

The man was convicted last month of one count of rape and 12 counts of sexual assault of the three girls in their Meath home in 2009 and 2010 when they were in their early to midteens.

He does not accept the verdict of the jury.

Mr Justice Paul Coffey remanded him in custody for sentencing next Monday.