A man who was jailed in the early 1970s for indecently assaulting a young girl has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for raping his seven-year-old niece a decade later.
Joseph Hogan, 61, from Rose Court, Keys Park in Limerick, raped and sexually assaulted the child when she was aged between seven and 11.
After a trial last month, a jury at the Central Criminal Court convicted him of one count of attempted rape, three counts of rape and three counts of indecent assault at a house in Co Limerick between December 1984 and December 1988.
Mr Justice Paul Carney said he could find nothing of substance in favour of the accused and therefore nothing was discounted or suspended from the sentence.
Warning: This report contains graphic details
In a victim impact report read into the court in her presence, the victim Sonya Stokes, who waived her anonymity, said her uncle had stolen her childhood from her.
She said: "His sick twisted mind stole my innocence forever, my childhood, my teenage years, my dignity, my trust in relationships."
The court heard that in 1973 the man was jailed in Ireland for six months for an indecent assault of a similar nature.
In 1974 he was convicted in the UK for the indecent assault of a girl aged under-14.
He returned to Ireland from the UK with his wife and they had a number of children.
In 1995 and 1998 he was convicted for indecent assaults committed after the abuse of his niece.
Additionally he was jailed for 22 months in March 2013 for breaches of orders under the Sex Offenders Act by living in houses with children in 2007 and 2009.
Hogan first raped his niece in his home sometime in 1984.
Other rapes took place in the living room while there was another baby in the house and in an outdoor shed.
He molested her while she was in a bath with other children in the same bathtub.
In one incident the child was asleep in her aunt's bed with her aunt and other children in the room.
Her uncle came home and got into the bed and molested her. He blocked her mouth with his hand and he tried to force himself on her. He only stopped when his wife woke up and told him to stop.
The victim said she suffers flashbacks, stress and anxiety as a result of the abuse.
"I feel so cold and lost. I cry for the pain and hurt he caused. I have tears locked inside that could probably fill an ocean."
She said that hearing the jury return a verdict of guilty was "like a tonne of bricks lifted from my heart".
