{"id":483840,"date":"2026-05-14T06:28:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T06:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/483840\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T06:28:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T06:28:22","slug":"girls-record-man-admitting-sexual-abuse-after-being-cleared-by-tusla-court-hears-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/483840\/","title":{"rendered":"Girls record man admitting sexual abuse after being cleared by Tusla, court hears \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A court heard how two girls outsmarted a paedophile pensioner who had sexually abused them by recording him on their mobile phones admitting the abuse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In 2021 one of the girls made a disclosure to a teacher and the complaint was referred to the Child and Family Agency, Tusla.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The agency ultimately determined after making inquires that there had been \u201caccidental touching\u201d and no further action was required.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The man (74) continued sexually abusing the girl and went on to sexually abuse another girl, a Circuit Criminal Court in Munster heard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The man was eventually investigated and apprehended by members of a Protective Services Unit within An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na which only investigates sex crimes, after the two young girls separately wrote letters to their parents outlining the abuse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The girls also provided garda\u00ed with audio and video recordings of the man admitting he was sorry for abusing them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The man admitted a total of 29 counts of sexual assault against the two girls over a period of four years between 2021 and 2025, when the girls were aged between 11 and 14 and he was in his late 60s and early 70s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The man was supported in court by his wife, who wept and hugged him in the courtroom as he was led into custody to await a sentence date in June.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cUnfortunately at the time Tusla concluded it was accidental touching. Despite one of the girls bravely raising matters, things were not recognised for what they were, but it was true,\u201d the prosecuting barrister in the case told the court.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">To protect the two victims\u2019 right to anonymity, the court ordered reporting restrictions in respect of the naming of the man, and limited the reporting restrictions in respect of the locations to an area in \u201cMunster\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The abuse involved the man touching the girls\u2019 breasts, buttocks, vagina and attempts to anally penetrate the girls, it was heard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He also invited the girls separately to go to bed with him and they declined.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The abuse left the girls \u201cfrightened and distressed\u201d and they each separately confronted him and recorded him on their mobile phones admitting the abuse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The mobile phone audio and video recordings were played in court in which the man was heard attempting to minimise the abuse, but then apologising for it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The man was also heard on the recordings attempting to \u201cmanipulate\u201d each girl into not disclosing the abuse, telling them his wife would have a \u201cheart attack\u201d from the shock of it, and that he would harm himself.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Garda\u00ed arrested the man in September 2025 and he made some admissions under caution.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The man\u2019s barrister told the court the defendant\u2019s lack of previous convictions and his signed guilty pleas warranted a \u201cmaximum discount at his sentencing\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The defendant was remanded in continuing custody to June 3rd.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A court heard how two girls outsmarted a paedophile pensioner who had sexually abused them by recording him&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[956,9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,8504],"class_list":{"0":"post-483840","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-an-garda-siochana","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories","24":"tag-tusla"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116571518224428875","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}