A man is to be sentenced next year for raping and sexually assaulting two young brothers hundreds of times and for making them commit incest with each other.
The 51-year-old, who was their mother’s partner, also had a friend of his sexually abuse one of the boys and abused both of them in front of another male relative.
“I don’t know how many times [the accused] abused me, it seemed like millions of times,” one victim said. “Some people had cereal for breakfast, I seemed to be molested for breakfast.”
The victims told the court they wished to waive their anonymity so their abuser could be named publicly. However, Mr Justice Tony Hunt said the anonymity orders remain in place for the time being.
The man pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to 165 counts of rape and sexual assault against one boy and 40 similar offences against his brother between 1993 and 2003 at his home.
During interviews with gardaí he accepted he was a “paedophile rapist” and described his offending as “shameful, horrendous, appalling, diabolical”.
Michael O’Higgins SC, defending, said his client wished to express his “deepest, sincere and profound sorrow” to the victims.
He said the man had himself been subjected to widespread and wholesale sexual abuse as a child by people in his own peer group and people in positions of trust.
He said this abuse had skewed the moral line that would normally be “naturally instilled” in a person growing up.
In victim impact reports, the victims outlined the effects of the abuse. The elder victim, who is now in his 30s, said he had been left with no confidence in himself. His brother said he is living now what can only be described as “hell on earth”.
The elder victim went to gardaí last year and told them he had been abused since the age of seven, when the accused moved in with them. It began with the man masturbating the victim and having the child do the same to him.
The man would do this every time he got the chance and it could occur up to three of four times a day.
It became so frequent that the accused did not need to say anything - he would simply nod or gesture when he wanted to abuse the child.
The boy said he tried to say no to the man “but it was like saying no to the wall”.
He then progressed to raping the boy . At one point the boy decided to kill himself but stopped because he “didn’t want him to win”.
On one occasion the man brought the boy to his friend’s house where both he and his friend molested him.
The boy said he saw the accused smile at his friend during the abuse “as if to say ‘Look what I can get him to do’ ”.
On another date he abused both boys in front of another relative before having sex with the relative and telling the children, “This is how it’s done”.
The elder victim told gardaí the man always abused him when his mother was in the house. “I think he used to get off on the thrill of nearly getting caught,” he said.
He said the man would have the two boys perform sexual acts on each other while he watched. The accused told the elder boy he could get him money if he was willing to perform such acts with other men.
“I used to feel sorry for [the accused],” the eldest victim told gardaí. “I used to think it happened to him and now it was happening to me.”
The man began abusing the younger victim from when he was seven years old. He said this started with masturbation and led to rape as he got older. He said he felt like he was abused “millions of times”.
Sometimes afterwards the man would give him money and tell him to go and play.
The accused was arrested last year and made admissions at interview, but initially denied rape.
He said the abuse started because he was having relationship difficulties and was not having sex with his partner.