A 71-year-old man who sexually abused three sisters over a ten year period has been jailed for 18 months.
John Callaghan, of Drung in Quigley's Point, pleaded guilty to 14 counts of indecent assault which occurred between January 1972 and January 1982.
One of his victims was just six years old when the abuse began.
Derry Crown Court heard that during one incident the defendant put his hands inside one of the girl's underwear and pushed himself against her back.
During separate incidents the defendant also lifted her and rubbed himself against her and put his hands inside her underwear and touched her.
He further admitted rubbing one of the girl’s breasts between five and ten times when she was aged between 11 and 12.
Callaghan made the third sister sit on his knee around five or six times when she was aged between 8 and 9 and put his arms around her chest.
When police spoke to him about the allegations last March, he denied them all and said he ‘never interfered with anyone’.
He told officers he ‘never had much interaction’ with the sisters and had never sat them on his knee or lifted them up.
Callaghan's defence barrister said: "Because the incident was so long ago he simply doesn't have much recollection, but he knows he has done something wrong."
The court heard after Callaghan admitted the offences he told a psychiatrist he didn't ‘didn't think it was any harm’.
However, his barrister said that was opinion at the time but he has since changed it.
Callaghan had instructed him to apologise for his behaviour and he described his client as ‘perilously close to a diagnosis of dementia’.
The court heard the victim impact report said the sisters ‘through their own strong efforts appear to have been able to cope and compartmentalise what happened to them as children’.
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