A 58-year-old Tipperary man has been jailed for sixteen years for raping his girlfriend’s six-month-old niece in 2019.
He was caught after someone anonymously handed a memory card into gardaí with videos of the abuse and a note asking them to arrest “this monster”.
Twenty video clips showing women and young girls using the toilet in a residential bathroom were found on the memory card handed into gardaí.
At times, the accused could be seen coming in to adjust the hidden camera.
He was in a relationship with the girls’ aunt at the time and they used to babysit them in his flat.
The abuse took place while he was alone with them. One of the videos showed him abusing her 6mth old niece as she lay in her pram. The baby was clearly distressed.
Aside from abusing the youngest child, he also admitted producing explicit images and videos of her and the four other children.
His barrister said it was obvious they don’t have any knowledge of what happened and claimed the harm seemed to be “at a minimum or relatively non-existent”.
The judge disagreed.
Before jailing him for 16 years, he said there was a real prospect of them finding out eventually and he said they may suffer psychological injury when that day comes.
