Mayo, 69, pleads guilty to sexually abusing his two underage grandchildren – courts

A mother has told how tears rolled down her face when she discovered her two young daughters had been abused by their grandfather.

A 69-year-old Mayo man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his victims, pleaded guilty at Castlebar District Court to sexually abusing the girls. The grandfather was charged with 17 counts of sexual assault and found guilty on eight counts.

Det Gda Paula Griffin told the court the victims were aged 10 and 5 when they told their mother in December 2021. The abuse began when they were six and three years old.

The accused was the paternal grandfather of the girl and regularly babysat them. The older girl said the abuse would happen whenever her grandfather babysat her, either at home or at her place.

The accused touched her vagina and warned that it was a “secret”. The girl told her mother that she thought her younger sister was also being abused. The older girl said that she heard her grandfather’s conversation with her younger sister, where he told her sister not to tell anyone.

When the older girl entered the room, her younger sister was rubbing her vagina with her grandfather in the room. He told her sister “not to tell mum and dad”. When the older girl asked him about it, he replied, “You know it, you like it too.”

The older girl was afraid of her younger sister and told her mother about what was happening. When her mother asked if someone had touched her intimate area, the five-year-old girl said that only her grandfather did it and it was a secret.

The five-year-old showed her mother how her grandfather touched her. She placed her hands on the vaginal area inside her pajamas and imitated the movement of her fingers around the vaginal area. She said to her mother, “Grandpa does this.”

A 10-year-old girl told her mother that her grandfather repeatedly touched her vagina and also tickled her vagina until she urinated on him. Both girls described how their grandfather touched them in exactly the same way. The accused forced both girls to sleep naked in bed with him.

The 10-year-old girl was abused for almost four years from November 2017 to April 2021. Her younger sister was abused from October 2019 to December 2021.

In an interview with gardaí, the defendant claimed he only touched the girls to put Nivea cream on their vaginas or to help them go to the toilet. Their parents did not know and did not give permission to use any cream.

He said he did not think it was inappropriate for his granddaughters to sleep naked in bed with him. He admitted he told their girls not to tell their parents because he described their mother as “funny”.

In a powerful and disturbing victim impact statement, the girls’ mother said her daughters were “used to sexually gratify their grandfather for years”. She said the family was in shock and dismay, and her husband could not understand how his own father could do this to his girls.

The girls’ mother described how they took the accused into their home when he was suffering from bouts of depression, not realizing that they were giving him more opportunities to abuse their daughters.

She described the devastating impact of violence on girls.

Her eldest daughter cried in the toilet at school and struggled every day.

“She cried every day and said, ‘I’m worthless.’

“She would cry on the living room floor.”

The accused has no previous convictions.

It became known in court that the psychologist believes that the man does not realize and does not realize the gravity of the crimes. The grandfather claims that he did not receive sexual pleasure during the violence.

Judge Eoin Garavan adjourned the case until next Thursday, October 31, to conclude.