CHILD rapist Michael Smith will spend 12 years behind bars for the decade of abuse he inflicted on a young girl who considered him to be her father.
After pleading guilty at Dublin’s Central Criminal Court this month, Mr Justice Carroll Moran remanded Smith in custody before sentencing him to 15 years on Friday (June 19), with the final three years suspended in light of his early guilty plea.
Smith was extradited back to Ireland last year, after being jailed in Britain in 2008 for grooming and sexually abusing a teenage girl he meet through a social media site.
This month the Dublin court heard that the 53-year-old from Tipperary managed to leave Ireland in 2004 after being interviewed by gardaí when his Irish victim informed officers of the abuse she had suffered over nearly a decade.
The woman, who has waived her right to anonymity, believed that Smith was her father at the time of the abuse, which began when Smith moved in with her mother.
The Dubliner, who reported the abuse when she was 17, claimed it began when she was eight and continued when Smith moved out of her family home, at addresses he held across the city.
Last week Smith, previously of Maplewood Way in Tallaght, pleaded guilty to nine counts of rape, two counts of oral rape, one count of possession of child pornography and assault causing harm of Michelle Smith at addresses in Rathmines, Tallaght and Cabra on dates between 1994 and 2004
