I thought abuse was normal for children, woman tells court

A woman who claims she was raped and sexually abused by her father from the age of six to 14 has told a jury that she thought such abuse was part of every childhood.

"Until I was much older I thought that was what happened to children. I thought it was normal," she said, recounting to the jury several occasions when her father raped and sexually abused her.

The 32-year-old woman, whose three sisters have also made allegations of abuse against their 63-year-old father from County Offaly, told the Central Criminal Court that her first memory of abuse was when she was six years of age.

The woman, whose elder sister has already given evidence of alleged sexual abuse by their father, said that from then on until she was nine he would regularly fondle her in the bathroom and make her perform oral sex on him.

She said he would also make her lie down on his bed where he would rub himself against her naked back. The incidents occurred at least once a week.

The abuse progressed to sexual intercourse when she was nine. She recalled that he always had Vaseline or some other cream with him on such occasions and he would penetrate her vagina from the back or from the front.

She also told the jury she recalled such abuse occurring in her grandmother’s house where her father would make her sit on his lap and he would fondle her in the genital area.

At the age of 14, she said, she told her father she "couldn’t take it any more". She said by then she had realised it was not normal and that it was very wrong. "When I was younger I did not know what sexual intercourse was and it was not discussed in my house".

She told prosecuting counsel, Mr Paul Coffey SC (with Ms Dara M Foynes BL),that she had absolutely no one she could talk to about the abuse. She decsribed her mother as "a very cold woman" who took to bed quite often with chest pains.

She said she had been afraid that she would cause her mother’s death if she spoke of what was happening to her. "I couldn’t have coped with that," she told the jury.

The accused has pleaded not guilty to eight charges of raping her and a total of 37 charges of indecent assaults of her and his three other daughters on dates from 1973 to 1987.

He has pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to seven counts of indecent assault in relation to all four daughters during the same period at various addresses.

The hearing continues before Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne and a jury of three women and nine men.