A convicted child abuser has had his bail revoked after pleading guilty to sexually assaulting two Limerick girls on the Luas in Dublin.

The 13 and 16-year-olds were on their way to a Rihanna concert when John Daly from Cabra Park in Phibsboro assaulted them on October 3rd in 2011.

The 53-year-old was arrested by Gardai three months later as he was about to board a tram at the O2 following a One Direction concert. He later admitted that he deliberately got on the Luas to touch young girls.

At the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, Judge Mary-Ellen Ring revoked his bail and remanded him in custody until January when he will be sentenced.

Daly was previously sentenced to three years in the year 2000 after pleading guilty to the attempted rape and indecent assault of two young girls in the 1980s, and to aggravated sexual assault and sexual assault on a 62-year-old woman on dates from 1997 to 1998.

Judge Ring revoked his bail and remanded him in custody until next January for sentence. She ordered a report from the Probation Service to see what treatment Daly can undergo in jail.

'Felt like there was no way out'

Garda Cathriona Gilmartin told Lisa Dempsey BL, prosecuting, that the girls had been brought to Dublin by one of their fathers that day and he had put them on the Luas at Heuston Station when they noticed the heavy traffic.

The tram was busy and Daly approached one of the girls, stood to her right hand side and put his hands between her legs. He touched her outside her shorts and tights and continued to molest her until the group got off the stop at the O2.

The teenager later reported to gardaí that she felt she had 'no way out' because she had been squashed against a bar. She said she did not know how to get out of the situation.

The girl's father was waiting for them at the platform at the O2 and they told him what had happened. Neither the girls nor their families were in court.