Court doubles sex offender's sentence

McKenna was sentenced to three years

A self-styled human rights campaigner has had his jail sentence doubled in the Republic of Ireland.

Vincent McKenna was jailed in 2000 for a series of sexual assaults on his daughter Sorcha.

After claims that his three year sentence was too lenient, the case was referred to Dublin's Court of Criminal Appeal which increased the term to six years on Thursday.

Sorcha's grandmother, Mary McCleary, said it was great to have the law on their side.

"We are ecstatic. The tension in this house has been absolutely awful in the last few days since we heard it was going to finally happen today," she said.

"Thank God the verdict went with us for a change.

"It has been a long, hard slog trying to get it this far. We are very pleased - the whole family is pleased."

Sorcha McKenna petitioned to keep her father behind bars

McKenna, 37, was given a three-year term after being convicted of 31 counts of sexual assault against his daughter Sorcha.

McKenna carried out the abuse over a period of eight years, between 1985 and 1993, beginning when she was four years old.

Sorcha, now 20, waived her right to anonymity so that her father could be named at the end of his trial in County Monaghan.

At the time, the teenager attacked the sentence, which was the minimum which could have been handed down, saying it did not "reflect the crimes he committed".

She added: "Three years is nothing in comparison to what he has done."

In 2000, Sorcha, who is studying law, collected more than 100,000 signatures on a petition calling for tougher sentences for sex offenders and presented the petition to the Irish government.

Before his public shaming, McKenna was a prominent victims' activist.

He had worked for the anti-violence group, Families Against Intimidation and Terror, before setting up the Northern Ireland Human Rights Bureau in Belfast.