A LIMERICK businessman is facing the prospect of a maximum sentence of life in prison for having sex with the 13-year-old daughter of a man he knew.
Michael Casey, (71) of Cois Roiga, Caherconlish, County Limerick was found guilty of 16 counts of the defilement of a child under the age of 15 and 17 years contrary to the Sexual Offences Act 2006.
Following a seven day trial, a jury of six men and six women took almost three and half hours to convict Casey by way of a 10/2 majority verdict on 16 of the 19 counts.
The victim, who was attending secondary school at the time, was befriended by Casey as he knew her father and he would regularly be at her home. She was also alone in his company at various locations in Limerick and Clare.
The trial heard distressing evidence from the victim, who is now 20, that the sexual contact escalated to such an extent that she ended up “just giving in”.
“I never let him fully have sex with me but he did put his penis in my vagina and finger me. He would do it before I could say anything really. He did it several times and very often it was every week or more.”
During the three-year period of abuse, the girl asked Casey why he did those things only to be told that he was doing it for later on in life and “to teach me sexual things”.
Details of offences that happened in a nearby forest park and a disused factory were also described in great detail by the girl.
“I realised what was going on but I was still young and vulnerable at that age”, she explained, adding that sexual incidents with Casey almost “became routine”.
The day she started her Junior Certificate examinations, Casey was to bring her to school but he tried to have sex with her.
“I screamed and got him off. I ran off crying and he still had to bring me to school. I sat through my exams but it was horrible.
She said that incidents would also happen inside a van and at various locations in Limerick and Clare.
“I was basically just a dummy, I didn’t say or do much as I was so young and was having this older man do this to me”.
During tearful exchanges of cross examination with defence barrister Coleman Cody SC, the victim said that she tried to distance herself from Casey towards the end of December 2011.
In January 2012, Casey left Ireland for West Africa and on January 27, she posted an entry into her diary, “It’s out now after I confided in someone, Michael Casey has been molesting me for the last three years.”
Prosecution Counsel John O’Sullivan said that the matters came to light when the victim confided in a school friend, who told her school guidance counsellor and principal.
The girl’s mother was immediately contacted and Gardaí were brought in to investigate.
Following interviews with specialist investigators, Detective Garda Patrick Hogan took a statement of complaint from the victim and Casey was later arrested and questioned.
He denied all the allegations and said that the girl was “simply making it up, it’s all a fantasy”.
He accepted he had regular contact with her but denied ever having sex with her. He described the victim as being a deeply troubled young girl and said that the allegations “was not her language”.
“It never happened it’s all lies, it’s all fantasy, it’s all rubbish”, he told Detective Garda Hogan.
The victim was examined four days after the incidents came to light and it was found that her hymen had been torn.
An application to remand the 71-year-old in custody was refused, but Judge O’Donnell directed that Gardai were to take his passport as a condition of bail. His name is also to be added to the sex offenders register.
Michael Casey is to be sentenced o March 29 and can face up to life imprisonment for the defilement of a child.
