Accused denies interfering with children, court hears

The man accused of raping his two daughters and his younger brother-in-law has denied he "interfered" with any child in his life.

He claimed his brother-in-law approached him in a pub sometime in 2003 and told him people he knew were "putting it up to him" to make rape allegations because "he had nowhere to go, nowhere to live".

The 44-year-old accused has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to 35 charges of sexual assault, oral rape, anal rape and rape of his two daughters and younger brother-in-law on dates between December 1, 1991 and June 1999 when the children were aged between five and 15 years.

The man denied he removed his children's clothes, touched their private parts or showed them his penis, saying: "I never interfered with any of my daughters or any child in my life."

He agreed with prosecution counsel, Mr Alexander Owens SC (with Mr Garnet Orange BL) that he and his ex-wife had a violent relationship but denied his children lived in fear of him or that he beat them, saying: "I admit I hit them slaps but I never hit my children with a belt or a poker."

He denied he was being manipulative by handing gardaí mobile phone pictures of him and his brother-in-law socialising around Christmas 2004 after his eldest daughter's rape allegations, when Mr Owens suggested he was happy to show pictures of the two men "being chummy".

The accused described how his present wife suffers from a lung disease and bad bones but denied she was ever hospitalised for an injury when Mr Owen's put it to him that on an occasion outlined in evidence by his eldest daughter, he was "out on the batter, committed the assault on (your wife) and raped your daughter."

The accused added that he had been ill in bed when his wife accompanied his daughter to hospital in an ambulance to be treated for a stomach pain.

A young woman known to the accused's now 22-year-old eldest daughter told defence counsel, Mr Conor Devally SC (with Mr Ronan Munro BL) that the complainant told her she could "get a flat on social welfare" if she claimed her father "molested" her.

The witness told Mr Devally that she "distinctly remembers" the complainant telling her this around Christmas 2002 when she was a young teenager because she acted on the information and ran away from home for two days.

She denied the accused organised her trip to the garda station when Mr Owens suggested she was told what to say in her statement, adding that she volunteered the information when her mother encouraged her to tell gardaí what the complainant said to her.

The accused's niece told Mr Devally that the 22-year-old complainant claimed her unborn child had been "kicked out of her" by her mother, that she had been "molested" by another man and that she became pregnant by her mother's boyfriend on another occasion.

The hearing continues before Mr Justice Daniel Herbert and a jury of seven men and five women.