Man accused of indecent assault on daughter

The trial of a Carlow resident accused of repeatedly indecently assaulting his daughter in his car in Co Kildare nearly 20 years ago has opened at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

The 62-year-old man, who can not be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty to four counts of indecent assault against his daughter in Co Kildare on dates between November 1981 and March 1984.

The girl was aged between 12 and 15 years old when the offences are alleged to have occurred.

The now 41-year-old complainant told Mr Sean Gillane SC (with Mr Daniel Boland BL), prosecuting, that on the night the first alleged incident occurred her father gave her a lift into a nearby town to meet friends and picked her up again at about 10.30 pm.

She said he drove on back roads and pulled into a gateway.

The woman said her father told her that her mother did not know she had gone into town that night and she “owed him a favour”. She said he pulled her hand across and made her perform a sex act on him. She said it did not last very long and he told her it was “our little secret”.

The witness said her father told her she was his favourite and it made him feel good.

She said a similar incident occurred later that year. She said he made her masturbate him and asked her to open her trousers to see what colour underpants she was wearing before putting his hand on her “privates”.

She said no one else was there during these events and it was usually night time.

The woman said her father would give her money and also gave her condoms.

She said on another occasion he told her to walk up the road and he would pick her up. She said she began walking and he picked her up about five minutes later, drove for a time, then pulled in some distance away.

She said he made her masturbate him again and she was about 12 or 13 years old at this time.

The woman said a further incident occurred when she was nearly 15 years old. She said she was in the car with her father, that he made her touch him, then got her head and pushed it down to make her perform oral sex.

She said she could not breathe and felt sick. She did not refuse as “you could not say no to him”. He told her she was a good girl and she made him feel good.

The woman told Mr Gillane she recalled an incident some years later in about 1994 when her father was confronted about the alleged abuse. She said herself, her sister and her mother were in a pub when her sister told her father that she knew what had happened.

She said they went back to her sister's house and there was a lot of shouting between her sister and her father.

She said her father admitted the sexual abuse to her sister and apologised. He appeared very upset and shocked because she had sworn to him that she would never tell anyone.

The woman said the incident did not last long and afterwards her mother and father went off for a few hours.

She agreed with Mr Michael O'Higgins SC (with Ms Siobhán Ní Chúlacháin BL), defending, that she may have told some people that the abuse started when she was about eight or nine years old.

She said she had been sent to her father's bedroom and he used to rub against her but the incident in the car was the first time he “made me do anything”.

She agreed that as an adult woman she knew such acts were sexual assaults and she was drawing a distinction between being abused and being forced to do something.

She agreed that she had made other allegations against her father and that they were the subject of a trial in which verdicts of not guilty were returned by the jury in some cases and directed by the judge in others.

She said she had first told her sister about the alleged sexual abuse after they had been out drinking together and said her sisters recollection of being in bed when she called to the house to talk to her was wrong.

She told Mr O’Higgins that the verbal altercation in which her sister confronted her father lasted about one hour and agreed that there was a lot of “shouting and roaring” and a lot of anger aired about family difficulties other then sexual abuse.

She denied that her father had not made any admissions about sexual abusing her at the meeting. She said she could not remember the exact questions and answers.

She told Mr O’Higgins she did have an “actual memory” of the event and denied she was supplementing her evidence and adding information when difficulties arose in cross examination.

She agreed she had a “breakdown” during the 1990s and suffered an episode of depression in recent years. She agreed that her doctor’s notes described her suffering auditory hallucinations but said she was on a lot of medication which “can do that to you”.

She agreed that she and her children had spent time living with her parents as an adult and they had stayed in her home as well.

The trial continues before Judge Frank O’Donnell and a jury of nine men and three women.