A Derry man (50) who sexually abused two of his daughters and a niece over a 13-year period was yesterday jailed for 16 years.
The defendant, who cannot be named in order to protect the identities of his three victims, bowed and shook his head as Judge Corinne Philpott told him there were no mitigating circumstances in the case, not even an acceptance of guilt by the defendant.
In February of this year at the city's Crown Court, a jury found the defendant unanimously guilty of one charge of raping his niece and of 13 charges of indecent assault involving his niece and his two daughters. The assaults took place between 1984 and 1997 when the victims were aged between six and 18 years.
During the trial, evidence was given that the defendant abused one of his victims on an almost daily basis and told another of them that he would "break both her legs" if she told anyone about the sex assaults.
The offences came to light when the youngest of his two daughters went abroad to her older daughter who had fled the family home to escape from her father's abuse.