Woman denies sexually assaulting younger brother

A woman denying charges of sexually assaulting her younger brother from when he was aged nine yesterday declared: “It is all untrue, total lies. It is disgusting.”

The woman, aged 46, is on trial before Judge Brian O’Callaghan and a jury of six men and six women at Cork Circuit Criminal Court. She has pleaded not guilty to all 10 charges of sexual assault. The parties cannot be identified for legal reasons.

It is alleged by her brother that she sexually assaulted him from when he was aged nine and she was in her early 20s. The prosecution closed its case yesterday and Vincent Heneghan, defence senior counsel, said the defence would not be calling any evidence.

The judge will formally charge the jury on Monday.

The jury, however, did yesterday hear statements and answers of the accused to questions from gardaí who investigated the case.

The accused said to gardaí: “I wish to state nothing of a sexual nature ever happened between my brother and I.

“I did occasionally babysit. Nothing of a sexual nature ever happened.

“There were very acrimonious family law proceedings [where the accused and her parents had sought access to the complainant’s son]. I was not aware of any problems between my brother and I before that.”

She said he stopped talking to members of the family in 2009 and then he and his partner had a baby in 2013.

The family sought access to the child through the family law courts in 2015. The accused woman said that was the first time she heard the allegation that she sexually abused her brother in the 1990s.

“There was a suggestion that if I withdrew my application [for access], nothing would be said,” the woman told gardaí.

She said that she was extremely shocked, disgusted, and upset to hear the allegations.

The woman said that her brother would phone her at 2am or 3am when he was a student to get a lift home and she obliged. She said, at another time when they were both living away from home, he would call to her apartment with his washing and she would give it back to him cleaned and ironed.

When various details were put to her by the gardaí about the alleged sexual assaults, she said they never happened and they were total lies.

“I looked after him as a sister. Nothing happened and it is very upsetting,” said the woman.

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

“Did you suggest if your sister’s application 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 said during the family law court in camera hearings. The complainant said yesterday: “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.”

The complainant said the first of the alleged incidents occurred when his parents were away for a weekend in May 1993.