The accused's daughter said she feels 'heartbroken and devastated' at what her dad has done. File photograph: Getty Images

A man who drugged his daughter and her friends during a sleepover before raping one of her pals has been jailed for 15½ years.

When the 47-year-old man’s phone was seized by gardaí, they found encrypted vault footage of him raping the same girl when she was passed out at a previous sleepover a week earlier, as well as child abuse images of her, his older daughter and two more of his daughters’ teenage friends.

The man pleaded guilty to eight sample counts at the Central Criminal Court pertaining to five victims – his two teenage daughters, his younger daughter’s two friends and a friend of his older girl.

He admitted two counts of raping his younger daughter’s 15-year-old friend and one count of sexually assaulting her, one count of child sexual exploitation by having sexual intercourse in front of another girl, one count of child cruelty by drugging the children and three counts of possessing child pornography, as it is referred to in law.

He has no previous convictions. The offences occurred on dates between June 2024 and July 2025 at the man’s Leinster home.

Imposing sentence on Thursday, Judge Sean Gillane said he viewed the man’s level of culpability as extremely high.

“Breach of trust in my view does not do justice to what happened here and risks becoming something of empty incantation,” said the judge, describing the man’s actions as an “orchestrated betrayal” of trust and relationships.

He said the “deliberate and calculated” recording and storage of the first rape was also aggravating, along with the man’s “complete lack of remorse” in the immediate aftermath of the second rape and “appalling remarks he made”.

Having considered the mitigation, the judge imposed a global sentence of 17 years, with the final 18 months suspended for five years on strict conditions which include probation supervision.

A local detective told Anne-Marie Lawlor, prosecuting, that the man invited his teenage daughter’s friend on a sleepover in July 2025 after liaising with her mother.

Another friend joined them, and the man plied all three girls with vodka drinks. He gave them pills he said were Motilium to stop them getting sick, but which toxicology tests later found were in fact sleeping pills and muscle relaxants.

Video footage taken from the girls’ phones showed them becoming increasingly intoxicated, to the point where they were incoherent and having trouble staying upright, the court heard.

The footage showed the man bringing them on various walks to the nearby woods in the early hours of the morning.

After putting his daughter to bed, he persuaded the victim to walk once more to the woods with him. The girl would not go without the third friend, and when the trio arrived in the woods, the man suggested they play hide and seek, and the third friend should hide.

He then proceeded to rape the victim, causing her extreme pain. During this, the man told the victim “not to worry”, and her friend would be next.

His oldest daughter said when the allegations were first made against her dad, she did not believe them and stood by him, which led to her losing friendships and being bullied and threatened. She said she now feels “heartbroken and devastated” at what he has done.

“I’m still trying to come to terms with what happened,” she said. “Everything feels very different now. The last year has had a deep and lasting impact on me. I am struggling every day.”

The rape victim said she suffers from anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder since the assaults, is afraid to take medicine and afraid to sleep at night. “I wake up to nightmares,” she said. “I used to love hugs and affection from family and friends. I now panic and freeze up.”

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Assailant who drugged daughter and friends before raping one jailed for more than 15 years