Wicklow man goes on trial for rape and indecent assault

A Wicklow businessman has been accused of raping and indecently assaulting a schoolgirl who worked part-time for him over 30 years ago.

The 58-year-old man has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to 18 rape charges and 19 indecent assault charges from January 1979 to June 1983 at various Wicklow locations when the girl was aged between 12 and 17-years-old.

In opening the case, Mr Tom O’Connell SC, prosecuting, (with Ms Monica Lawlor BL) told the jury that it would hear how the complainant felt trapped in a situation of repeated and persistent sex abuse and that her former employer would manipulate and humiliate her psychologically.

Counsel said that “if a person’s mind or will is overborne by psychological manipulation then there is no consent.”

The complainant told Mr O’Connell that the accused started to “brush” against her regularly a short time into her after-school job.

She said she didn’t understand what was going on at the time and felt that if she had told anyone they would have taken the accused’s side.

The woman said all this “unwanted” physical contact led to sex one evening when the accused brought her down on the floor in a darkened room on the premises and raped her.

She said after that the sexual intercourse happened every few days for a number of years.

The woman said every time she tried to leave the situation, the accused would come to her family home and it would be made out that she was too lazy to come to work.

She said she did not tell anyone about the alleged abuse because “in those days (the accused) would have been believed before me.”

She told Mr O’Connell there was “some fashion” of sex abuse everyday- either sexual intercourse, oral sex or the man fondling her intimately.

She said she felt bullied and blackmailed into staying in the situation because the man had informed her she would be known as “spoilt goods” or “second hand goods” if she had told anyone.

She told Mr O’Connell that the abuse stopped when she finished school at 16 or 17 years old.

Ms Mary Rose Gearty SC, defending (with Ms Siobhán Ní Chúlacháin BL), put it to the woman that her client denied any sex abuse ever happened.

The woman replied that she “categorically” denied this.

She agreed she remained friends with the accused’s brother briefly after the period of the alleged abuse. She also said she would babysit for the accused every Saturday night during the time but could not recall anything about his home’s interior.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Peter McCarthy and a jury of six men and six women.