Paedophile jailed over ‘base’ abuse of two teen girls

A MAN who sexually abused a 14-year-old girl and used a Stanley knife to remove a contraceptive implant from her arm, has been jailed for nine years for what a judge described as ‘hugely damaging’ actions.

Eoin Vickers, 35, described as ‘a manipulative, controlling and violent man’, was 28 years old when he first began, what was described as the ‘relationship’ with the 14-year-old girl.

He encouraged her not to use contraception and when she had a contracepto tive bar implanted in her arm, he removed it with a Stanley knife.

Vickers, who demanded €50 in petrol money per week from the girl, also had sex with her teenage friend and gave them heroin to smoke.

In their victim impact statements, the girls described how Vickers controlled every aspect of their lives.

The Central Criminal Court heard the girls wished to retain their anonymity, but were happy for Vickers to be named.

The court heard that Vickers had sex regularly with the first victim over a two-and-a-half year period. He began controlling her and stopping her from seeing her friends.

The girl said she was terrified of Vickers and his temper. She said he put a knife to her throat on one occasion and stabbed her with a pen on another. He told her he would put compromising photos of her on the internet and around her home town if she did not do what he said.

Vickers, of no fixed abode, who lived at various locations in Co. Mayo during the time the offences took place, pleaded guilty to five counts of defilement of the first victim on date between May 2011 and October 2013.

He pleaded guilty to assaulting the first victim causing her harm on a date in August 2013. He also admitted defilement of the girl’s best friend on a date in July 2013.

Judge Michael White said this was a ‘particularly disturbing case’ and Vickers was ‘a manipulative, controlling and violent man’.

He said he accepted defence submissions that Vickers had accepted his guilt and apologised his victims, but noted an interview in the probation report outlining that Vickers had very little insight into the damage he was perpetrating on these young girls.

‘These were children, absolutely children, and Mr Vickers was twice their age and that must never be lost sight of,’ said the judge.

Judge White said that the relationship the accused man had with the first victim was ‘hugely damaging’, and his behaviour in relation to the two girls was ‘of the most base kind’.

Vickers was most recently living in Britain from where he was returned to Ireland on foot of a European Arrest Warrant. He has been held in custody since December 2017.

The judge sentenced him to 11 years but suspended the final two years on condition Vickers complete an assessment within the prison for the sex offenders’ treatment programme.

Patrick Gageby SC, defending, said Vickers acknowledged the gravity of the matter and wished to make a ‘unequivocal’ public apology to the two girls.