Man (70) jailed for 17 years for cold campaign of rape of stepdaughter

Isabel Hayes

A Wexford man who “coldly engaged in a campaign of rape” against his stepdaughter from when she was a child has been jailed for 17 years.

Alec Goucher (70) was found guilty by a Central Criminal Court jury of 25 counts relating to the sexual abuse of his stepdaughter, Elizabeth Usher, between 2000 and 2007, including sexual assault, rape and section 4 rape with an implement.

She was around 11 years old when the abuse started.

Goucher, of Lower George's Street, Wexford, Co Wexford, continues to deny the offending and does not accept the verdicts of the jury. Ms Usher waived her anonymity so Goucher could be named.

The trial took place in Waterford in January this year, and a sentence hearing was held in Dublin last February, but the finalisation of the case was delayed for some months due to delays in preparing a defence psychiatric report. Goucher has been in custody since the trial.

The court heard that towards the end of the trial, Goucher failed to show up one day after setting his home on fire and being hospitalised for smoke inhalation.

Responding to a section of the psychiatric report which suggested Goucher might be suitable for a non-custodial sentence, Ms Justice Karen O'Connor said there was no question of this.

She said Goucher had attempted to collapse his trial and had never expressed any remorse for abusing his stepdaughter.

Eoghan Cole SC, prosecuting, said Goucher “coldly engaged in a campaign of rape” and had a “remorseless attitude” to his offending.

He noted Goucher raped his stepdaughter from the age of 13 or 14 and regularly raped her twice a week from when she was around 15 or 16. This was a result of his “paedophiliac grooming”, prosecution counsel said.

The abuse eroded her sense of self to the point where even as a young adult, the woman was not capable of verbally refusing sex from her abuser, the prosecution submitted.

Goucher “poisoned” Ms Usher's relationship with her own father and groomed her from an early age when she came to live with him and her mother.

In her victim impact statement, Ms Usher said Goucher succeeded in getting her to live with them and that once there, “he got me in his lair and treated me like I was a play toy, not a human being”.

She said reporting him was the toughest thing she ever did.

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”.

She noted he acted with extreme depravity when he used a sex toy on her and that he also raped her on the night of her Debs ball, an important milestone in a young person's life.

She noted that when Ms Usher first took the stand at trial, Goucher told her to “speak up”, which the complainant felt was an attempt to intimidate her.

The judge commended Ms Usher for her dignified manner throughout the court process and for her “enormous courage” in the face of Goucher's disrespectful behaviour.

The judge further noted Goucher's “preposterous and self-serving narrative” throughout the trial, during which he maintained that as a child, the complainant climbed into bed with him and persuaded him to engage in sexual acts. He also claimed she was trying to “get her hands” on the family home.

The judge said Goucher has displayed no remorse, no insight and had limited mitigation in his favour. She handed down a sentence of 17 years, which she backdated to when he first went into custody.

After the sentence was handed down, Goucher called out: “I did not do anything”, to which the judge responded: “This man has taken enough of our time, and I am not engaging.”

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie/services/helpline/ or visit Rape Crisis Help.