Sex offender targeted mentally impaired man

Wed 31 Oct 2018 at 02:30 UP DATED BY FRED BASSETT MARCH 2022

A Dublin sex offender who was jailed for groping two teenage concert-goers on a Luas will be sentenced next year for acts of gross indecency with a mentally impaired male.

John Daly (58) served a partially suspended four-year sentence for sexually assaulting two teenage girls on their way to a Rihanna concert in 2011.

He received a six-year sentence from the Court of Criminal Appeal in 2000 for other sexual crimes, including indecent assault, aggravated sexual assault and rape. Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard that those crimes dated from the 1980s and 1990s and involved females.

Demons

Daly, of Cabra Park, Phibsboro, and Leinster Road, Rathmines, pleaded guilty to five acts of gross indecency with a mentally impaired person on dates between 2016 and 2017.

Garda Niall Freaney said the victim later revealed that Daly had threatened to kill him on one occasion and to burn him to death on another, if he didn’t comply with the acts.

Gda Freaney said Daly was later arrested but claimed during interview that the behaviour had been consensual.

The garda agreed with Luigi Rea BL, defending, that Daly’s guilty plea was valuable to the investigation.

Mr Rea submitted to Judge Melanie Greally that his client had an intellectual disability himself. He said Daly did make efforts to deal with his demons.

Judge Greally imposed an 18-month sentence for one of the latest charges and remanded Daly in custody until next year, when she will deal with the remaining four counts.

She said an aggravating aspect of the case was that Daly had a “significant and concerning record of misconduct of a sexual nature”.