Man jailed for eight years for sexually abusing three of his sisters
Paula Fay was aged 14 or 15 when she woke to find her brother Richard in her bed lifting her nightdress. She said he told her he needed 'a favour' because he would be unable to have sex when he became a priest.
Her sister Catherine Wrightstone said her brother's sexual abuse of her began on her ninth birthday.
Sentencing Brennan in the Central Criminal Court on Monday, Mr Justice David Keane said an aggravating factor was that the defendant committed some of the offences when he was a seminarian at Clonliffe College studying for the priesthood.
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He sentenced Brennan, with an address in Montana in the US, but formerly of Rathfarnham, Dublin, to a global total term of nine years imprisonment, with the final year suspended, for the offences against his sisters Yvonne Crist, Ms Fay and Ms Wrightstone.
The global sentence sought to take account of all of Brennan's 24 offences, the judge said.
He said aggravating factors included that, while some of his offending occurred when he was aged 16 and a minor, it continued until he was 24.
All of the offences occurred at the siblings family home in Rathfarnham in the late 1970s and 1980s.
Another aggravating factor was the breach of trust as a seminarian and a brother with particular responsibilities to his sisters whose trust he 'fundamentally betrayed'.
The offences occurred in the family home which should have been a place of safety and security but was instead made one of fear, the judge said.
He expressed 'immense admiration' for the three women for the determination they had shown for engaging and persevering with the legal process.
Mr Justice Keane said he hoped they would get further strength from their brother's late admission of guilt.
The three women gave victim impact statements in which they stressed the physical, emotional and psychological impacts of the abuse they suffered.
They said they had found the trial retraumatising.
In mitigation, the judge took into account Brennan's 'very late' guilty plea, apology and expression of remorse to his victims, that he had no previous convictions and had co-operated with gardaí.
He also took into account he is now aged 64 and answering for offences that occurred when he was aged 16-24.
The judge said he had been given 20 character references from Brennan's friends and colleagues in the US, as well as testimonials from his wife Bridget and their adult children, and had considered them insofar as he could.
Brennan was ordained in 1989 but left the priesthood after meeting his wife in the US in 1992 and they married in 1993, the court heard.
Ms Fay and Ms Wrightstone, accompanied by family members and supporters, were in court for the sentence decision on Monday. Ms Crist watched the proceedings via video link from her home in the US.
Brennan, who has five adult children, has been in custody since last March. His wife and a family friend travelled from the US for his sentencing.
After his sisters gave evidence, and just before the last woman was cross-examined in his trial last March, Brennan indicated he was entering a guilty plea and ultimately pleaded guilty to 24 charges, including six offences of rape.
He pleaded guilty to four counts of indecent assault of Ms Fay between early 1978 and late 1979 and four offences of rape on dates between 1979 and June 1981. He was aged between 16 and 20 and she was aged between 13 and 17 at the time.
He admitted 13 counts of indecent assault of Ms Wrightstone on dates between June 1980 and late 1985 and two counts of rape in 1984 and 1985. He was aged between 19 and 24 and she was aged between nine and 14 at the time.
In relation to Ms Crist, he admitted one count of indecent assault against her in the family home between June 1979 and June 1980 when he was aged 18 or 19 and she was aged 20.
The judge noted Ms Fay was aged 14 or 15 when first assaulted by her brother, when she woke in her bed to find him pulling up her nightdress.
He asked her for sex, telling her she would be doing him 'a favour' because he was studying for the priesthood and would be unable to have sex with any girl. She wanted him out of her room and felt she had no option but to give in. The first incident of rape occurred when she was 16.
Ms Wrightstone said she was first abused by Brennan when she was nine and the abuse continued into her teens, progressing to rape when she was aged 12 or 13.
During the first incident of abuse, he told her he had something to show her, took her to her bedroom and performed oral sex on her which she found disgusting. She said she cried and vomited afterwards in the bathroom.
In other incidents, he examined her maturing body as if he was a doctor and told her this was what he was supposed to do as a big brother. The abuse was so frequent she could not say how often it took place, she said.
Although she disclosed the abuse in 1984 to a specialist educator linked with her school, her parents failed to act, the court heard.
The family were referred later that year for family therapy but her parents withdrew from that and Brennan's abuse continued.
Ms Crist was aged 20 and sleeping in the family home after singing in Jury's hotel when she woke to find her brother naked on top of her and seeking sex.
She screamed and told him to leave, he initially refused but left after she grabbed the phone and said she was calling the Garda.
In submissions for the Director of Public Prosecutions, Fiona Murphy SC said the offences fell into the more serious bracket, involving more than one victim and breach of trust.
In submissions for Brennan, John Byrne SC said he is the third oldest of seven children. They had a 'somewhat chaotic lifestyle' and fraught parental relationships, which involved the children seeing frequent violent outbursts fuelled by their mother's mental illness and their father's alcoholism.
Brennan and two of his sisters spent a period in institutional care.
The court had heard the parents, who died in 2013 and 2014, did not deal with Ms Wrightstone's disclosures in 1984 of her abuse by her brother, counsel said. She was not believed and it was regrettable the matter was 'swept under the carpet' then as had there been a full investigation, that might have prevented the abuse progressing further and getting worse.
Mr Byrne said his client had been naturalised into deviant sexual behaviour from an early age by his older brother Bernard and this case could not be divorced from his brother's earlier case.
Counsel said, while it was not part of this case, Richard Brennan, claimed he had been sexually abused by Bernard and invited by his brother into a situation where he was sexually abusing his sisters.
Last month, Bernard Brennan (67) was jailed for a total of 4½ years after pleading guilty to 11 counts of indecent assault against Ms Fay and Ms Crist on dates between 1972 and 1975.
Ms Fay was aged seven and he was aged 18 at the time of the first offence against her. Ms Crist was aged 13 and Brennan was aged 15 when he started abusing her.
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