A 27-year-old man, who sexually assaulted a young girl he was babysitting at her home in Co. Meath, was sentenced to three and a half years imprisonment at Trim Circuit Court yesterday.
The man who was 23 at the time, and lived with the victim’s family, pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting the then 5-year-old girl on two occasions in 2019.
In a victim impact statement the girl’s father said his daughter had severe nightmares following the assaults and the older she gets the more she understands what happened.
He revealed she has trust issues with men and gets upset and angry easily and would probably need counselling in later life.
The court heard that the family has now left the area where the incident took place as they felt they could no longer stay in the house because of what happened.
The defendant had come to Ireland with the victim’s family in November 2018 to act as an unpaid childminder in return for getting debts paid off and learning English with a view to getting employment.
Judge Orla Crowe sentenced the defendant to concurrent terms of three and a half years on each of the offences backdated to December 22nd 2020 when he had been taken into custody.
