Sister sex claim ‘not over child access battle’

The man who claimed that his older sister sexually assaulted him was yesterday accused of making up the allegation as a bargaining chip to be used against her when she applied for access to his son.

A 46-year-old woman is on trial, by judge and jury, accused of sexually assaulting her brother, from when he was aged nine and she was in her early 20s.

The complainant was cross-examined by defence senior counsel Vincent Heneghan at Cork Circuit Criminal Court yesterday.

Mr Heneghan put it to the complainant that he first alleged that his older sister sexually assaulted him when she applied for access to his child.

“Did you suggest if your sister’s application [for access] was withdrawn, you would withdraw your allegation, that this would not be heard about again?” Mr Heneghan asked.

The complainant replied: “I don’t remember saying that… I was not using it as a bargaining chip.”

Mr Heneghan repeated the allegation and went into the transcript of what various parties had said during in-camera hearings in the family law court.

The complainant yesterday told the court: “That does not mean I would be withdrawing my version of events, my knowledge of what happened. I cannot withdraw something that happened to me.”

After the cross-examination by Mr Heneghan, prosecution SC Noel Whelan said matters had arisen for re-examination and asked the complainant: “How have you dealt with engaging with your abuser, who is your sister?”

Mr Heneghan objected and said this did not arise out of the cross-examination.

Mr Whelan said to the defence lawyer: “You went through every bob she ever gave him for pocket money.”

Judge Brian O’Callaghan allowed the question.

The complainant then said: “It went from me trusting her like another mother. Over time, when I realised what it was, what was happening, I went through phases of blaming myself and suppressing it.

"I pushed it away and put walls around it.

“I trained myself not to think about it. That is what enabled me to do what I did; it gave me a drive and work ethic to get on, to move on.”

He said he tried to stay civil with his sister so that he could get on with the rest of his life.

The accused woman ahs pleaded not guilty to all 10 charges of sexual assault, and a jury of six men and six women will hear a third day of evidence at Cork Circuit Criminal Court today.

The parties cannot be identified for legal reasons.

The complainant said the first alleged incident occurred when he was nine and his parents were away for a weekend in May 1993.

“She got into the bed alongside me,” he said. “She took my left arm in her left hand and brought it around her body. She then put it on her breast outside her pyjamas.

"She started moving and squeezing my hand, so that it squeezed her breast.

"She then put her hand under the pyjama top, so that I was fondling her bare breast. She got me to squeeze and move her breast.”

He described other similar incidents, and another one where she allegedly got his hand and put it on to her vagina and forced one of his fingers inside her.

He said these incidents all occurred in the family home, when there was no-one else present, and once in a hotel in Dublin, when the family were away together.

Judge O’Callaghan yesterday issued a warning to the jury about media reports of the case.