The 30-year-old man is accompanied by gardai as he leaves a courthouse last year

A FATHER wept as a court heard how his family have been "touched by evil" since the brutal rape of his young daughter and her friend.

"We live daily and nightly with this new world created by this man, it's so unfair," said the father, who broke down in the witness box at the Central Criminal Court before the man was given two life sentences.

"We have all been touched by evil," he said as he tried to explain the trauma inflicted on his "princess beauty" by the man, who is not being identified by the Irish Independent.

The 30-year-old rapist was given two life sentences yesterday for repeated rape of the two girls, aged six and nine.

The Irish Independent can today reveal that the rapist, himself a father of two who has more than 100 previous convictions, was only released from garda custody hours before the girls' ordeal.

He had been arrested the previous night on suspicion of a public order offence. A complaint about the alleged offence was not made and just hours before targeting his young victims he was released from the garda station.

He lured the girls away from a birthday party, under the pretence that he had a six-year-old sister who was "too shy" and wanted to play with them, before trapping them in a flat and subjecting them to a horrific sexual assault.

Once inside, he violently raped the children and threatened to cut their throats, and told them he would cut their parents' throats if they did not comply.

The man pleaded guilty to three counts of rape of a nine-year-old and two counts of rape of the six-year-old girl at a midlands address last year.

There were distressing scenes in the Central Criminal Court as prosecutor Patrick McGrath outlined the details of the attacks.

A victim-impact statement was read out in court on behalf of the nine-year-old's parents who wept openly throughout.

The mother of the girl said that she feels she is living in a nightmare she cannot wake up from.

"Inside, I am slowly dying," she said, adding that her daughter no longer feels safe.

Her husband said he was "sitting on an emotional time bomb" with his daughter, adding that the attacks had also affected the other children in the family.

Meanwhile, the father of the six-year-old described the attack as an act of depravity not fit for a society where young children live. He said his daughter had moments of anxiety every day, and did not want to be on her own at any time.

She had developed mouth ulcers, sleep problems and panic attacks.

Both children had to be treated after the attack with what was described as a "cocktail of medication" to prevent the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV.

Judge Carney sentenced the man to two life sentences for all five counts of rape. The sentences are to run concurrently.

"For the past 20 years I have refrained from saying this is the worst case ever, because doing so has always prompted a worse case the following week," said Judge Carney.

PRISON

The convicted man showed no reaction after the sentence was passed and was quickly led away by prison officers.

He had served up to 10 jail sentences since 2002, including terms for assaults, burglary and possession of weapons. He was also suspected of being involved in a number of crimes against women, and assaulting a pensioner, and was linked to a number of other violent crimes.

While he had no history of targeting children, the Irish Independent has learned that the serial offender had previously been questioned over a sexual attack on a teenage girl. However, he had no previous convictions for sexual offences.

Irish Independent