Three men have been jailed in Ireland after subjecting their sister and underage relatives to sickening sexual attacks for years.
The attackers, who have not been named to protect the victims, now face prison sentences ranging from 11 to 16 and a half years after the incestuous abuse they learned from their father.
Their mother, 64, was jailed on Monday for helping one of her sons after he raped her granddaughter, and on one charge of assaulting the same child.
Their father, 66, was convicted in May as part of the same trial. His sentencing, scheduled for today, has been postponed while he remains in hospital.
The verdicts came after a three-week trial, which heard about the crimes that took place across the country between 1999 and 2005.
Madam Judge Mary Ellen Ring said the family was ‘ruled by a deviant father figure who abused and abused his wife and children, his grandchild and extended family members’.
She said he “relentlessly preyed on family members with violence and deviant behavior. It is chilling that his sons learned their father’s abuse and rape.”
The Central Criminal Court in Dublin heard that all five family members maintained their innocence.
Dublin’s Central Criminal Court, where five people maintained their innocence amid allegations of horrific abuse against children between 1999 and 2005
The unnamed father is currently serving a 16-year prison sentence for sexually abusing his daughter.
She is said to have become pregnant with his child at the age of 17.
“He was the father, not the grandfather, of his daughter’s child,” Judge Ring said.
He and his wife raised the child as their own.
Ms Ring said the children involved had ‘their rights to be safe, to be fed, to be educated and to be protected violated time and time again’, as reported by The Irish Times.
“They have led a very simple and difficult life over the years,” the judge said. ‘Home was often on the side of the road.’
The family was reportedly part of an extended Traveler community.
Mrs Justice Ring said neither brother showed remorse for the crimes, or empathy for the victims.
In May, a complainant – then 30 years old – testified that while visiting her grandparents in Leinster she was raped four times by two of her uncles, who are suspects in the trial.
She said she told her grandmother about one of the incidents and claimed she was beaten with a stick for lying.
On another occasion, she described being attacked by an uncle when the family stopped to get food from an uncle’s van.
She said she was told to stay in the van while the others left. Her uncle drove down the road, grabbed her and threw her in the back of the van where he anally raped her.
Describing another rape incident, she said of her uncle, “It was just a game for him. He didn’t care.’
One man, 41, was found guilty of 19 charges of raping his sister, four charges of sexually abusing her and three charges of oral rape.
He was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
A 40-year-old was found guilty of 20 counts of rape, five counts of sexual assault and three counts of oral rape.
He was sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Another, 39, was found guilty of 20 charges of raping his sister, four charges of sexually abusing her and six charges of oral rape.
He was also found guilty of two counts of anal rape of his niece and two counts of anal rape of a male cousin.
He was sentenced to 16 and a half years in prison.
It was noted that all three had a combined 468 previous convictions, mainly for driving offences.
The father was found guilty of 24 charges, including two charges of anal rape of his granddaughter and 22 charges against a cousin.
These included twelve charges of anal rape and ten charges of oral rape.
The court heard he also has 185 previous convictions, including 99 for sexual abuse of two of his daughters.
The mother was sentenced to four years. In her judgment, Mrs. Ring noted that she was the victim of physical and sexual abuse by her husband.
She had no previous convictions.