Father accused of raping daughters testifies in court

A Dublin father has denied he sexually assaulted his two young daughters by digital penetration because the nails on his hand would have wounded their skin.

The man (aged 73) said under cross-examination that he could not have sexually abused the girls in this way because his nails would have torn their “soft skin” and neither had ever accused him of physical injury.

The man further denied he raped these daughters and sexually abused one son.

He has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to sexually assaulting and raping two daughters between the ages of four and eleven and sexually assaulting his son from the age of three to six at various locations from 1995 to 2002.

Ms Isobel Kennedy SC, prosecuting, asked the man why he had mentioned a specific date in a letter he said he wrote so his children could return to their mother, if he claims he had written this letter some weeks before that date.

Earlier, the man said he alleged he sexually molested his children in the letter so they could go home but that he included deliberate mistakes in the content so the allegations could be proven false later in court.

The man said he had written the letter months before he handed it to a friend, who passed it on to the Health Board.

Ms Kennedy asked him how he could have predicted events on a date in February 2002 if he had written the letter the previous January.

The man insisted the February date was chosen at random but by coincidence his elder daughter had returned home that day and gardaí subsequently arrived at the house to bring her back to her residential care.

Ms Kennedy put it to him that it was "absolute rubbish" to say he had written the letter in January.

The man denied this and said he had carried the letter around with him for months, had handed it crumpled to a friend and wrote it deliberately in Biro ink so it may have been forensically dated in future.

Ms Kennedy reminded the man that an expert witness had said Biro cannot be dated this way and that gardaí found him semi-naked in an upstairs bedroom at the house in February 2002 with an Easter egg beside his bed, while his daughter hid behind a sitting room armchair.

She put it to him that he realised then he would be in difficulty and wrote the letter after this date because it was only a matter of time before his children would come forward with their allegations of sexual molestation.

In the letter, the man said he regularly touched the private parts of his daughter from August 2000 to the date in February 2002.

She further put it to him that only after this date could he have known nothing happened between him and the daughter.

The man denied he wrote the letter to thwart any legal investigation and to build a “smokescreen” around him so he could manipulate and control the situation.

He agreed he made a number of complaints against the children’s foster parents but denied this was so he could carry on abusing them and so they would never settle in their placements.

Another of the man’s sons told Mr Blaise O’Carroll SC, defending, that he could recall being well clothed in his original family home and that he never went hungry in that house.

The son said he always had a clean change of clothes and that he and siblings would get baths almost every evening.

When asked if any of his siblings had ever been deprived of food he responded: “Oh Jesus no.”

He said he remembered always being fed if he was hungry but could not remember any family holidays before being taken into care.

He told Mr O’Carroll that his foster parents had asked several times if he or his siblings were ever sexually abused and if he wanted to attend counselling.

The son said he refused them saying he did not think there was a need.

He said he still had a scar on his hand from where his foster father allegedly bit him though he can’t recall why he was bitten.

He said was only aware of the sex allegations against his father through the court case.

The trial continues before Mr Justice George Birmingham and a jury of eight men and four women.