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A MAN WHO drugged his daughter and her friends during a sleepover before raping one of her friends during a purported game of hide and seek in the woods has been jailed for 15 years and six months.

When the 47-year-old father’s phone was seized by gardaí, they found encrypted vault footage of him raping the same girl when she was passed out at a previous sleepover a week earlier, as well as child abuse images of her, his older daughter and two more of his daughters’ teenage friends.

The man pleaded guilty to eight sample counts at the Central Criminal Court pertaining to five victims – his two teenage daughters, his younger daughter’s two friends and a friend of his older daughter.

He admitted two counts of raping his younger daughter’s 15-year-old friend and one count of sexually assaulting her, one count of child sexual exploitation by having sexual intercourse in front of another girl, one count of child cruelty by drugging the children and three counts of possessing child sexual abuse material or child pornography, as it is referred to in law.

He has no previous convictions. The offences occurred on dates between June 2024 and July 2025 at the man’s Leinster home.

Imposing sentence today, Mr Justice Sean Gillane said the court’s function was to impose sentence on behalf of the community and was “not an act of vengeance”.

He said the court viewed the man’s level of culpability as “extremely high” and that there were “a number of sadly habitual features” in this case which often come before the court in similar cases.

“Breach of trust in my view does not do justice to what happened here and risks becoming something of empty incantation,” the judge said, describing the man’s actions as an “orchestrated betrayal” of trust and relationships, which rippled out from his children and former partner to his children’s friends.

The judge said this was not casual, and that the man was manipulative and methodical in his offending, “targeting the friendships his children had innocently developed”.

He said the “deliberate and calculated” recording and storage of the first rape was also aggravating, along with the man’s “complete lack of remorse” in the immediate aftermath of the second rape and “appalling remarks he made”.

The judge noted that the court had “no forensic explanation” for the cause of the man’s offending or his interest in children.

Having considered the mitigation, the judge imposed a global sentence of 17 years, with the final 18 months suspended for five years on strict conditions which include probation supervision.

A local inspector detective told Anne-Marie Lawlor SC, prosecuting, that the man invited his teenage daughter’s friend on a sleepover in July 2025 after liaising with her mother.

Another friend joined them, and the man plied all three girls with vodka drinks. He gave them pills he said were Motilium to stop them getting sick, but which toxicology tests later found were in fact sleeping pills and muscle relaxants.

Video footage taken from the girls’ phones showed them becoming increasingly intoxicated, to the point where they were incoherent and having trouble staying upright, the court heard.

The footage showed the man bringing them on various walks to the nearby woods in the early hours of the morning.

After putting his daughter to bed, he persuaded the victim to walk once more to the woods with him. The girl would not go without the third friend, and when the trio arrived in the woods, the man suggested they play hide and seek, and the third friend should hide.

He then proceeded to rape the victim, causing her extreme pain. During this, the man told the victim “Not to worry”, and her friend would be next.

Part of the rape was captured on the phone of the third girl, who inadvertently videoed part of the incident when she came upon them.

Both girls then fled from the man and hid in the woods, but eventually returned to the house out of fear for their friend’s welfare – the man’s daughter.

The third friend left the following morning, but the victim stayed another night and was again given alcohol and tablets by the man.

He apologised to her at one point for his behaviour the previous night, saying he had “felt bad about it all day”. She was scared of him and said it was okay.

After she called a male friend on Snapchat and told him what had happened, this teenage boy urged her to leave the house and tell an adult what had happened, arranging to meet her with a taxi at a nearby pub.

The man overheard part of this conversation and confronted the child, telling her she had “asked for it”, that she would ruin his life and he would lose everything.

Gardaí were alerted after the girl returned home and she was taken to a sexual assault treatment unit (SATU).

When gardaí went to the man’s home and seized his phone, they found an encrypted vault with 827 child abuse images and 71 videos, including two of his daughter’s friends – one of whom was the rape victim – and his older teenage daughter.

They also found images and videos of him raping the same 15-year-old girl as she lay passed out beside his younger daughter at a sleepover. This had occurred the week before the incident in the woods, and the child had no memory of this rape.

Gardaí found 18 images of him in the act of raping the child as she lay in what appeared to be a state of unconsciousness beside his younger teenage daughter, as well as separate images of him indecently exposing her.

They also found 17 images of the younger daughter’s friend – the third child who was present at the sleepover and hid in the woods with the rape victim. She was asleep on a couch in the photo with her breasts exposed.

They also found images of the man’s oldest daughter’s friend who had holidayed with the family the year previously. The images focused on the girl in her underwear. She was 15 at the time.

Gardaí further found images of the man’s oldest daughter, which appeared to have been taken furtively as she dried herself after a shower. There were other photos of her sunbathing in her swimwear and playing football on a beach which focused on her bottom half.

The mothers of the four girls were all shown sanitised versions of these photographs by gardaí and identified their daughters.

In his comments, Mr Justice Gillane said it was a “distressing feature” of the case that the parents of the girls had to identify them in these sanitised images.

He also said the court was satisfied that the material found in the encrypted vault was deliberately put there for the purpose of future access.

Four of the five victims made victim impact statements. They are the man’s oldest daughter, the rape victim and the two friends who were photographed. His youngest daughter declined to make a victim impact statement. Neither daughter was in court but were represented by their mother – the man’s former partner.

The other three girls remained outside for the duration of the prosecution evidence, but were each brought into court by support workers when their victim impact statements were being read. The man cried in the dock as they were read out.

His oldest daughter said that when the allegations were first made against her dad, she didn’t believe them and stood by him, which led to her losing friendships and being bullied and threatened. She said she now feels “heartbroken and devastated” at what he has done.

“I’m still trying to come to terms with what happened,” she said. “Everything feels very different now. The last year has had a deep and lasting impact on me. I am struggling every day.”

The rape victim said she suffers from anxiety and PTSD since the assaults, is afraid to take medicine and afraid to sleep at night. “I wake up to nightmares,” she said. “…I used to love hugs and affection from family and friends. I now panic and freeze up.”

The third friend who was also drugged at the sleepover and had photos taken of her said she lost her best friend – the man’s younger daughter – as a result of his actions. She said she thinks about what she could have done differently to help her friends that night.

The older daughter’s friend who was photographed by the man on holidays said she has become anxious, uncomfortable and self-conscious since his offending came to light. She said her relationship with the man’s daughter broke down and “losing such a friendship has been extremely upsetting”.

“It has affected the way I view and trust people, particularly men,” she said.

In his plea of mitigation, Michael Bowman SC, defending, said the man wanted to apologise unreservedly for the “irreparable and unconscionable harm he has caused”.

“It has had catastrophic consequences for his relationship with his wife and with his children,” he said. The court heard the man had separated from his wife prior to his offending and he was drinking to excess at the time and taking drugs.

He has a good work history and has no criminal history, defence counsel said, leading Mr Justice Gillane to note that “someone like him is trusted and that’s how the offending behaviour takes place”.

Mr Bowman said the man is open to doing any rehabilitation courses that are available to him.

Imposing sentence, Mr Justice Gillane said the court couldn’t accept the defence’s submission that the breakdown of the man’s relationship, coupled with alcohol and other “sad” events “go any way to explain what happened”.

He said the guilty plea was valuable and that the man’s work history and lack of previous convictions were also mitigating factors. The judge said the man “now at least had expressed remorse”.

The judge said the court observed that one difficulty in this case was that the defendant’s ability to appear conscientious, trustworthy and hardworking was one of the ways his offending could take place.

The man made no reaction as the sentence was imposed, and he entered his bond.

Mr Justice Gillane noted the presence in court of some of the girls’ parents. He said they were also victims in the “true broad sense”.

“One can only imagine the torture they have put themselves through,” the judge said, noting they must have questioned themselves many times.

He said the court hoped that “today offers some finality”.

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