A sports coach (63) has been jailed for a total of 14 years for 31 sexual offences against two teenage girls including the rape, oral rape and sexual assault of one victim and the sexual assault of the other.Judge Siobhan Lankford said the sexual abuse of the two girls was pervasive and systematic. She noted it went on for a prolonged period against both girls separately and he exploited their passion for their sport to abuse them.“The injured parties were very young at the time of the offences. The huge age disparity is an aggravating factor as is the multiplicity of sexual acts performed upon them. There was an attempt to alienate the girls from their parents. I find that to be very aggravating.“The effect on the injured parties is significant, and their victim impact statements eloquently set out how they were affected. The length of time over which they were abused is an aggravating factor,” she said, making an order prohibiting naming the man as it would identify the victims.The man had denied all charges but was convicted unanimously in May of three counts of raping one girl, nine counts of oral and digital rape and 10 counts of sexual assault on the same girl between 2020 and 2021 as well as nine counts of sexual assault on the second girl between 2016 and 2018.Lankford recalled the evidence of Det Garda Darragh McGuire of the Kerry Protective Service Unit who told how the man began coaching one girl when she was 12 and he became verbally and physically abusive, calling her names and slapping her if she didn’t perform in her sport.On one occasion he brought her to a remote rural location where he told her “I could do anything to you out here, I could rape you, I could kill you”. Later, after asking her for kisses, he started trying to touch her bottom and put his hand up under her shirt to touch her breasts.The detective said the man escalated the abuse by getting the girl to masturbate him and perform oral sex on him including while he was driving her to sports events. He raped her for the first time on June 10th, 2021, at a premises in Kerry but the other rapes occurred when he took her to sports events and he would book two rooms.However, he would force her to join him in his room and rape her and she would wake up to find him again having sex with her.He said the accused’s abuse of the second girl began when started touching her breasts outside her clothing and on one occasion, when the girl’s mother contacted him after she learned he had booked them both in one room, he told her, “I was hardly going to rape her.” In her victim impact statement delivered by the detective, the first girl said how the man “didn’t coach me or teach me – you hunted me ... You took away my innocence, something that can never be replaced, you broke the soul of a child.”“You normalised this behaviour – you used your position as my coach/mentor/teacher to manipulate and force me to do things no teenager should ever have to do ... You left me alone and afraid ... You threatened me, making me fear you, to ensure my silence on what was happening. The second girl in her victim impact statement said how the man “filled me with dreams and hopes of becoming ‘the next big thing’ and then used those hopes to manipulate and control me. The psychological and sexual abuse I experienced at your hands has affected me deeply.“You repeatedly told me I was weak, trying to convince me that I would never be able to stand up for myself or succeed without you. You chipped away at my confidence for years so that I would doubt myself and depend on your approval.”The judge imposed a 10½ years term on the man for raping one girl three times, orally raping her nine times and sexually assaulting her nine times. She imposed a consecutive sentence of 3½years for sexually assaulting the second victim nine times. Lankford said because the man contested the case and made no admissions and consequently expressed no remorse, he was not entitled to the reductions of sentence that would apply where there was an admission of guilt.