A rapist who abused his own stepdaughter when she was a child has been locked up for seventeen years. Alec Goucher “coldly engaged in a campaign of rape” against the woman, starting when she was around 13 years old. He was found guilty of 25 counts, relating to the sexual abuse of his own stepdaughter, between the years of 2000 and 2007. The charges included sexual assault, rape and section 4 rape with an implement.
Goucher, 70, of Lower George’s Street, Wexford, in the Republic of Ireland, denied the charges and reportedly does not accept the verdict reached by the jury. His victim, Elizabeth Usher, waived her own anonymity so that Goucher could be named in the press. The trial took place in January this year, in Waterford, with a sentencing hearing held in Dublin the next month.
However, the case could not be concluded quickly, owing to a delay caused by the preparation of a psychiatric report by the defence. Goucher was held in custody during the trial. The court heard that Goucher failed to show up to court after setting his home on fire toward the trial’s end, and subsequently being hospitalised due to smoke inhalation.
After a psychiatric report, which made a suggestion that Goucher might be suitable for a non-custodial sentence, which was denied, the Justice, Ms Karen O’Connor, said that Goucher had tried to collapse the trial, and has not expressed any remorse at all for his criminal actions toward his stepdaughter.
Eoghan Cole SC, prosecuting, said Goucher “coldly engaged in a campaign of rape” and had a “remorseless attitude” to his offending. The prosecutor also note that Goucher had raped his stepdaughter between the ages of 13 or 14, and thereafter regularly raped her twice a week from when she was around 15 or 16. The counsel said that this was a result of his “paedophiliac grooming”.
Over time the abuse eroded her sense of self, the prosecution submitted, to the point that when she was a young adult, the victim was not able to verbally refuse sex from the abuser. Goucher had “poisoned” Ms Usher’s relationship with her own father, with Goucher having groomed her from a very early age, when Ms Usher had come to live with him and her own mother.
In her victim impact assessment, Ms Usher said “he got me in his lair and treated me like I was a playtoy, not a human being”.
Ms Usher told the court that reporting him was the toughest thing she had ever done. Sentencing Goucher, Ms Justice O’Connor said he manipulated his stepdaughter “in a most callous way” from a young age and exposed her to his “gratuitous sexual perversion”.
Justice O’Connor also noted that Goucher had acted with extreme depravity when he made use of a sex toy on her, raping her on the night of her ‘Debs ball’, an important milestone in a young person’s life, she noted. She further noted that Goucher had told Ms Usher to “speak up” in what she had felt was an attempt to intimidate her.
Justice O’Connor commended Ms Usher for her “enormous courage”.
She handed down a sentence of 17 years, which she backdated to when he first went into custody.