Man tricked stepdaughter into sex using web persona

A MAN tricked his stepdaughter into having sex with him by posing as a stranger online who had information on her, a court has heard.

The Clare man, 49, threatened the teenager and told her if she made a sexually explicit video of herself she would ‘never hear from me again’.

Posing as the stranger, he then continued to harass her via email. He demanded more videos and told her she had to have sex with her stepfather. In his role as stepfather, the man told the child he had received threatening emails from the same source demanding money.

After videos of the child being molested were made, the man concocted more emails threatening to reveal the stepfather’s abuse unless they sent videos of him raping her.

The emails told the child her stepfather’s ‘future is in your hands’.

Seán Gillane SC, prosecuting, told the Central Criminal Court that the teenager found these emails very distressing as she was afraid her stepfather would go to jail and wanted to protect her mother.

She pleaded to let her stepfather have sex with her and the man subsequently raped the child using the pretence of these threats.

The girl was aged 16 when the harassment began and had turned 17 when her stepfather raped her.

After the abuse came to light, the girl, a foreign national, was taken into foster care. The court heard she had come here with her mother from another jurisdiction.

After his arrest, the man initially continued to pretend he was the victim of an online stranger, but later admitted to gardaí that he had sex with the teenager against her will.

The man, who cannot be named to protect the victim’s anonymity, pleaded guilty to rape at a place in Co. Clare between August and September 2010. He also admitted harassment between June 2009 and September 2010. Judge Michael White imposed a ten-year sentence with two years suspended.