A Donegal man who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting two sisters will be sentenced next week.
The man, who is aged in his 50s, has appeared at Letterkenny Circuit Court.
The man, who cannot be named in order to protect the anonymity of his victims, previously entered a guilty plea last October.
The victims in the case are related to the defendant.
He pleaded guilty to a charge that, on a date between February 1992 and September 2000, at a named location in County Donegal, that he sexually assaulted a female by touching her genitals when she was sitting on his knee.
He also pleaded guilty to a charge that, on a date between April 1997 and March 1998, at a named location in County Donegal, that he sexually assaulted a female by touching her buttocks under her pyjama bottoms while she was sitting on his knee.
The court was told that the plea was accepted on a full-facts basis.
Detective Garda Michelle Kelly told Ms Fiona Crawford BL, state prosecutor, that one of the complainants was playing a Nintendo game in the home of a relative.
She was sitting on the suspect’s knee when he put his hands down her trousers. The victim told gardai that the defendant started touching her vagina “for a few minutes” with his fingers.
In another incident, the suspect unzipped the girl’s trousers and started to touch her vagina with his mouth.
Around the time of her First Communion, the same type of incident occurred where the accused man unzipped the victim’s trousers and started touching her vagina with his mouth. The victim reported that he also used his hands “and started using his fingers”.
Ms Crawford told the court that the victim did not tell anyone at the time.
“A lot of the time, I never said anything as I didn’t really understand it,” she told gardai.
The other complainant told how the accused man put his hands around her waist and started to hug her. The victim said the man put is head on her shoulder and placed his hands under her bottoms and onto her bum,
“I don’t recall him saying anything and his movements were slow,” she told gardai.
Victim impact statements were read to the court by Detective Garda Kelly.
One of the victims recalled how she suppressed the memories and when she began dating it all seemed “like a weird dream that made me feel uncomfortable”.
She told how she became a very timid child and felt that it led to her being bullied in secondary school.
“Not only being bullied, but held back in many ways,” she said, adding that she was “scared to get a job, shy and backward and scared to deal with the public.
She ended up giving up on a college course as she never felt good enough or that she belonged.
“I have come out of the other side,” she said. “I am a survivor, not a victim.”
The second victim said she was very naive as a child, but was aware what was done to her was “not okay”.
“I locked it away and did not discuss or think about it,” she said, adding that when she found out about what happened to her sister she “felt guilty for not speaking up sooner”.
She said that “once fond memories are now tainted”.
She said that the man’s admission of guilt is “small compensation” and was thankful for the “amazing support” from her family.
The accused man was put into the witness box by his own barrister, Mr Colm Smyth SC, acting with Mr Ciaran Elders BL, instructed by solicitor Tom McSharry.
The man read a letter to each of the victims in which he apologised.
“I am deeply sorry and I know what I did was unacceptable,” he wrote to one of the victims. “You didn’t deserve what I did and I take full responsibility. I understand the gravity of what I did. It was wrong of me to use the trust that way.”
To the other, he said he understood that his actions had “left a scar.”
“I misused the trust and that was totally wrong of me to do so,” he said. “I am truly sorry and so ashamed.”
He said he had “no right to ask,” but expressed the hope that the women could forgive him.
As a token of remorse, the man brought to court the sum of €7,000 to be paid to each victim.
Mr Smyth told Judge John Aylmer that his client has been placed as a low risk of reoffending.
“He has full insight into the harm that he has caused,” Mr Smyth said. “In many ways, he was a man who did not perhaps have the social life one would expect from a young man.”
He said his client had an otherwise exemplary record and the man’s employer was present in court.
Judge Aylmer said he would take time to consider sentencing and adjourned the matter until Tuesday next, May 7.
The man was remanded on continuing bail.