Man ‘got teen niece to pose topless’

A man got his niece aged 13 or 14 to pose topless in cut-up shorts for a blue movie that would make €1,000, it was claimed during a trial yesterday.

He also allegedly told her he was blackmailing a member of staff at her school with photographs of a naked teacher following a relationship.

The middle-aged accused pleaded not guilty to indecently assaulting his niece between April and September 2004. He went to trial before Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin and a jury of nine men and three women at Cork Circuit Criminal Court, where he denied all particulars of what she said.

She testified that her uncle told her he would photograph her when she was aged 13 or 14 and she was a little bit shocked, but when he asked her a second time she agreed.

He picked her up in his 4x4 in the town close to where she lived and drove her out to his house. She said she recalled the year as 2004, because on that St Patrick’s Day she drank for the first time and became very drunk. She said her uncle started buying her cigarettes and alcohol.

“We went into the house. He brought me in. When we went in, he said there was some other men going to take photographs, because he was my uncle and it would not be right [for him to photograph her].

“He would have other men take the photos, but he would be outside, so nothing would happen. He said he had to call them. He came back and he said they were not coming, they backed out.

“Because he was already there, he may as well do it, he said. I felt really pressured. He said he had clothes I could wear. There was woman’s jeans, denim, old-fashioned Wrangler jeans, hacked up short...

“I came up out of the bedroom. He had a big JVC camcorder on a tripod stand. It was facing a window. He asked me to start saying my name and my age and that I was still in school. I done that. He started taking photographs. He said to take my top off. He told me to leave my bra off. He told me to take my hands down [from her breasts], that the videos would be worth more money.”

She said she wanted to stop, he encouraged her to keep going, but eventually she stopped and went into a bedroom. She said he sat beside her on the bed, pushed her legs apart, pushed her underwear aside and put his fingers inside her for a few minutes, saying: “Shush, it will be OK.”

She said he drove her back to the town saying nothing on the journey. She said he later sent her film and a video cassette, but there appeared to be nothing on them. She threw them in a lake. She said he later told her he could destroy her with what he had.

She was cross-examined by defence barrister John Devlin, who said the accused did not have a 4x4 at that time. She said she knew nothing about cars.

She said he gave her an envelope sealed with an emblem stamped in wax, like something from a century ago, and he said it was photographs of the teacher in her school naked. She said she handed the sealed envelope to the teacher, who was shocked. Mr Devlin said there was no teacher of the name given by the accused in the school at that time.

In an interview with gardaí, the defendant denied the claims, and said there was a row between him and his brother — the complainant’s father — over a will and that but for this row the complainant would not have made the claim against him.

In evidence yesterday, he denied all particulars of the complainant’s claims, and said the alleged blackmailing of a teacher did not happen.

The judge will send the jury out to commence their deliberations today.