A TOURIST from the North has admitted assaulting his own daughter during a holiday in Donegal.
The 47-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had planned to contest the charge before Letterkenny District Court.
His daughter, who was 11 at the time and who is now 14, had been due to give evidence against her father via video link.
The incident happened in the early summer of 2014 at a caravan park in the north of the county.
A garda told the court how gardai had received a report of a young girl crying in the grounds of the caravan park and she went to investigate.
The garda said she quickly established that the girl claimed she had been pushed to the ground twice by her father.
The dad had refused to allow her to be interviewed, but his estranged wife, who arrived at the caravan site later, did agree. A video-taped interview was taken later.
When the father was interviewed by gardai several months later he had initially denied assaulting the girl saying she had fallen.
The man had stuck to the story until this week when he changed his plea to guilty.
His solicitor Mr Gordon Curley said the man had continued to maintain a relationship with his other two children after the breakdown of his marriage.
On the day of the incident, said Mr Curley, the man’s daughter was using her phone to purchase goods on EBay.
“He confiscated the phone and locked it in his car. She then got extremely distressed and began throwing things around the cabin including a TV. He tried to restrain her. During the procedure of getting her out of the caravan for her own safety, he did have to use restraining tactics but he does concede that it may have been over-zealous but he was doing it for her own protection at the time,” said the solicitor.
“He felt his ex-wife was using this (the assault charge) as a weapon against him in civil court proceedings in the North.”
Mr Curley said the defendant has a great relationship with his other two children. He had a partner now and two more children “and he hopes at some stage in the further he might re-acquaint himself with his daughter” in this case.
The solicitor went on: “He didn’t want to hurt her; it was for her own benefit and he is extremely sorry it has ended up in court today. Any sort of conviction is not going to help either party.”
Judge Paul Kelly commented that it was “always highly desirable that physical force should not be used in situations like this regardless of the provocation at the time”.
He said the incident was “something he has to live with until he can rebuild this young lady’s trust.”
The judge added: “I hope it does come to pass.”
Judge Kelly applied the Probation Act.
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