Daughter 'physically and mentally scared' of rape accused

The daughter of a Sligo man accused of sexual abuse has told a Central Criminal Court jury that they had a “love hate relationship” and she was “physically and mentally scared of him”.

The 45-year-old man, who can not be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty to one count of rape and four counts of sexual assault on dates between September 2005 and June 2006.

The girl was aged between 14 and 15-years-old at the time of the alleged offences.

The now 19-year-old woman, giving evidence via video link, agreed with defence counsel, Mr Kenneth Fogarty SC, during cross examination, that her father had told her he was sorry he ever had her following an argument.

She agreed she was upset and the comment was hurtful.

“Me and Dad had a love-hate relationship, I reminded him of himself,” she said.

Mr Fogarty put it to her that this occurred just a few weeks before she made these allegations which had “not a grain of truth”.

She replied she was not “sick minded” enough to tell lies in front of a judge and jury.

She agreed she was embarrassed when her father took action after finding out she had been stealing but denied it happened close to the time she made the allegations.

She denied that her allegations had been prompted by her outrage over her punishment.“I would not be malicious and make up lies,” she said.

She also denied that she was enraged after finding out her father was going to move in with a local woman.

She agreed that on the day she was allegedly raped in her bedroom by her father, her evidence was that she heard a laugh downstairs which she recognised as a particular friend of her father.

She said she believed the laugh came from the sitting room and said she could not remember if it was possible to hear noises from the next door neighbour’s house, but agreed that you would be able to hear the television if it was on downstairs.

When asked why she did not cry out during the alleged rape she said: “When you are brought up with a man like dad you are physically and mentally scared of him.”

She told Mr Fogarty that she found out several days later, while talking to her father, that he had met his friend at a garage on the day of the alleged rape.

Mr Fogarty asked her why she had not said to her father, while they were discussing his friend, that his alleged behaviour that day had been “outrageous”.

She told him: “You don’t understand how scared I am of my father. You have not been brought up by my father.”

When he asked her why she would not tell her sister, who shared her room, what was happening to her she replied: “She (the sister) was very close to my father, she would have said it back.”

She said she had been crying when she came downstairs after the alleged rape and she heard her father tell his friend she had “stole money or stole back my phone that he had confiscated from me”.

When asked if it had not occurred to her to shout out she was crying because her father had just raped her she replied: “I was scared of my dad.”

Mr Fogarty put it to her that if it had been on her father’s mind to rape her he could have done it on “hundreds” of other mornings when there was no one else in the house and that the alleged event had never happened. She replied that it did happen.

The complainant agreed she had given an alternative version to some people of how she received an injury to her face and had said she had a “punch up” with her sister when they were rowing about babysitting. She said she was “protecting” her father by not saying he had kicked her in the face.

The trial continues before Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne and a jury of four women and eight men.