Girl 'remembers father sexually abusing her', court hears
A 10-year-old girl has denied under cross examination that her father, who is accused of cruelty to his five children, never sexually abused her.
During her second day of giving evidence the girl denied a suggestion by defence counsel, Mr Blaise O'Carroll SC that her father had never sexually abused her. “I remember and all, him doing it,” she said.
When asked if she agreed that she was not slapped in the way that her brothers were, she replied: “He never did it to me but he did it to the boys.”
The accused man, who can not be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to the rape and sexual assault of his now 10-year-old daughter on a date in September 2007 and the sexual assault of his now 13-year-old son on dates between January and Febuary 2007.
He also pleaded not guilty to the willful assault of his three sons in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering, injury to the children's health or seriously effect their well-being on dates between January and September 2007.
He further denied the wilful neglect of all five children, now aged between 7 and 14 years old, by failing to provide adequate clothing or food.
Earlier Mr O’Carroll (with Mr Kieran Kelly BL) asked the girl if she remembered giving statements to the gardaí and she replied that she did. He then put portions of the statements to the girl.
She agreed that she had described in evidence how she went to bed on the night of the alleged rape at about 7pm and it was after her little sister woke from a bad dream and left to sleep in her mother's bed that her father “sexed” her.
She agreed she had said in her garda statement that “sexing” happened before they went to bed but that she was now saying in evidence that it happened after she went to bed.
She agreed that she had told gardaí that her dad was “sexing” her at a time when she would have been two years old or younger. Asked if she remembered this, she said “yes”, and asked if she had a clear recollection of it, she replied “not really”.
She agreed she had told gardaí that she sometimes went into her parents room because she was afraid of the dark and while she was asleep her dad would “sex” her.
Asked by Mr O’Carroll how she would know her dad was sexing her if she was asleep she replied she would wake up. She agreed she was alleging this happened “a good few times”.
When asked if her mother never asked what was going on she said “no” and agreed she was saying her mother would just let the accused have sex with her in the parental bed.
She agreed that she remembered telling the gardaí that she was wearing jeans on the day she was allegedly raped in September 2007 and agreed that in evidence she had told the court she was wearing a skirt.
Asked to explain the discrepancy she replied: “I am not sure what I was wearing.”
She agreed she had told gardaí that when her dad “sexed” her she did not know if it was right or wrong and that he told her not to tell anyone, but that she had told her foster parents after being taken into care.
She agreed that she was saying the rape in September 2007 happened in her bedroom and when Mr O’Carroll put it to her that she had told gardaí she was in her dad’s bed, she replied: “I think I got a little bit mixed up.”
Ms Isobel Kennedy SC (with Ms Orla Crowe BL), prosecuting, asked the girl during re-examination if it was right or wrong to say that her father had not “sexed” her, she replied “wrong.”
The trial continues before Mr Justice Elizabeth Dunne and a jury of five men and seven women.
