A 45-year-old man has been jailed for 17 years for repeatedly raping his wife and two of his young daughters at their Co Cork home over a 15-year period.

The man, who cannot be named to protect the anonymity of his victims, pleaded guilty to 26 counts out of 185 counts for the offenses which took place on various dates between 2004 and 2019.

Gardaí received complaints from victims in 2020 and Sergeant Elaine Scannell and Det Brian Morris from the Cork County Garda Protective Services Unit investigated the case where the injured party outlined how they had been abused by the accused.

The man’s eldest daughter was abused from the age of nine until she was 16, and his younger daughter told how her father began raping her shortly after her First Communion. She said she used to wake up in her bed to find him raping her and it continued from the age of nine until she was eleven.

The man denied the offenses when he was arrested in 2020, but police seized a number of items, including vibrators and bedding from his home, which forensic tests showed contained the DNA of his wife and eldest daughter.

At the Central Criminal Court on Monday, Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring said the only mitigating factors were the accused’s guilty plea, the fact he had no relevant previous convictions and a psychological assessment which found he was at low risk of re-offending. .

But she said there were many serious aggravating factors, including the huge breach of trust in relation to his children and the humiliation and manipulation of his victims over a sustained period of almost 15 years during which they were subjected to “unspeakable behaviour”.

She sentenced the man to 18-and-a-half years for the charges, but suspended the final 18 months on condition that he remain under the supervision of Probation Services after his release from prison. The sentences were backdated to February 2024, when the man first went into custody.