A man previously jailed in the UK for the rape of his step-children has been jailed for the repeated rape of his daughter here.

The 75-year-old man, who cannot be named in order to protect the victim’s identity, was released in the mid-90s. He then travelled to Asia where he married.

He later came to live in Dublin with his wife and the couple had two daughters in 2003 and 2005. He began molesting the youngest child when she was aged just six years old.

The sexual abuse escalated to oral rape when she was seven. He continued to rape her regularly for the next two years.

The abuse emerged in December 2013 when the man’s terminally ill wife reported her concerns about possible abuse of her daughter to hospital staff. When gardaí were alerted they did a background check on the man and discovered his previous convictions.

Gardaí found out the man was in sole charge of his two daughters and they had been left unattended in a local library. The man subsequently returned to Asia, taking his wife with him against medical advice.

He returned to Ireland in 2014 after his wife’s death. Acting on a tip off gardaí went to his flat with a search warrant and found passports in the names of his daughters in his luggage.

The man, a UK native, pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to seven counts of sexual assault between January 2012 and December 2013, when his wife disclosed her concerns. He also admitted four counts of oral rape between May 2012 and December 2013.

Sentencing the man to 10 years, Mr Justice Paul Coffey said he was taking into account the “devastating effect of the abuse on her experience of childhood”.

The abuse began with the man getting the girl to simulate sex with him and forcing her to touch him. He later began forcing her to perform oral sex on him.

The man’s previous victims were under the age of 11. In a victim impact statement, his daughter called the man a monster who was sick and needed help.

“You never protected me like a real Daddy. Deep down you know what you did was wrong. You probably can’t help yourself. Please get some help. Let them help you.

“I hope you are ashamed and guilty and that you serve time in prison,” she said.

Mr Justice Coffey said the victim’s childhood was taken from her and replaced by “torture and pain”.

He noted that she said the memories of the attack would never leave her.

He said the starting point for a sentence was 15 years, but he had to take into account the man’s age and his “overall extremely poor health”.

He also noted that the victim had expressed great relief that she didn’t have to endure “the ordeal of a trial” as a result of the man’s pleas of guilty. Taking these mitigating factors into account he reduced the sentence to 10 years.

He said that sentence may amount to a life sentence due to the man’s age and ill health. He backdated the sentence to 2014 when the man went into custody.