Man jailed for "abuse campaign"

A County Armagh man has been jailed for 18 years after admitting raping one child and sexually abusing five others.

Noel Brendan Cooney, 57, from Springwell Gardens in Lurgan, pleaded guilty to 37 sex offences.

These include three of raping a girl, indecent assault and gross indecency upon a boy and four girls from 1989 to 1993.

The judge, who put Cooney on the sex offenders register for life, said he had carried out a "campaign" of abuse.

Craigavon Crown Court Judge Patrick Markey QC, said if he had been allowed to impose the sentence he wanted on each individual case of sex abuse, the jail term would have been "astronomical".

"But the law says that cannot be done and I can see why and I have to abide by the law," he added.

Earlier the judge described the abuse as "a deliberate campaign on your part and a betrayal of all the rules of morality and a breach of trust and friendship".

He added that because of his "horrendous" abuse many of his victims "have been very grossly affected, because they wrongly blame themselves".

Defence described Cooney as a "solitary and isolated loner" and accepted that he had "groomed" his victims.