A man has received a suspended sentence at Tralee Circuit Court after he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a girl. The man who cannot be named for legal reasons was in a relationship with the child's mother when the assaults took place in 2010.

The court was told that that in 2009, the man was in a relationship with the victim's mother and living in their home.

The incidents of sexual assault did not come to light until January 2011 when the girl's mother read her diary and was concerned about a number of entries.

When she spoke to her daughter, the girl told her mother of two occasions when she was sexually assaulted by the man.

The girl was later interviewed by specially-trained gardai to whom she told the incidents took place in her home between October and December 2010, and while she was on holiday with her family and the man in the Canaries in August of the same year.

The accused man was arrested in April 2011 and confessed to the incidents described by the girl, and to a further three incidents.

In a victim impact statement the girl said she still suffers from panic attacks and insomnia, and she hates what her life has become.

Judge Carroll Moran sentenced the man to three years, suspending the sentence for five years, and directed him not to approach the house where the girl lives or contact her or her family, directly or indirectly.