A man who left his 2 year old daughter on the side of the road in the early hours of the morning has been jailed for three years by Letterkenny District Court in Co Donegal.
It was reported that the father, who is in his twenties, left the infant on the side of a busy road as an act of revenge against her mother who had gone out for the night.
In what was described as a premeditated act the man took photos of the child and sent them to her mother before driving away.
Details of the case were related by Gardaí who said that two men who were on the way home in Letterkenny at approximately 5am thought they heard a child crying.
On inspection the pair found the tiny girl alone wearing socks but no shoes and crying while clinging onto a baby’s bottle containing milk.
The men went to houses beside the construction site where the child was found thinking that she must have strayed from a nearby home.
However none of the people who answered their doors recognised the little girl who was freezing cold after being abandoned.
The child was then wrapped up and placed in a patrol car after Gardaí arrived at the scene.
Sometime later a phone call was made to the local Garda station by the child’s mother who explained that she had been away when her ex-partner (the child’s father) had abandoned the child out of jealousy.
It reported that the man, who cannot be named in order to protect the identity of the young victim, called the child’s mother at least thirty times during which he made threats of abandoning the two year old.
The man, who had a previous conviction related to drugs, was sentenced to four of a possible five year jail term with the final year suspended as his early guilty plea served as a mitigating factor.
The child’s mother told the court that the little girl does not like to be around people other than herself and her parents.
Judge John Aylmer ordered that the man identify any partners or their children who he forms a relationship with within 12 months of the completion of his prison sentence.
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