Accused admitted rape of daughter 'to calm mother down', court hears

A former professional soccer player has admitted he confessed to raping his daughter but only so her mother would “calm down”.

The man is accused of 74 counts of rape and sexual assault on the girl over a four-year period. He also told the court that he admitted the offences to gardaí during interview, but only because he thought it was the best thing to do for his daughter.

“I said in my mind: This will never get to court so why put (my daughter) in a position that she would be branded as someone who tried to get her father in trouble.”

“I have a very strange mind in that respect”, he told defence counsel, Mr Bernard Madden SC. “To me, it was the right thing to do.”

He has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to 60 counts of sexual assault and 14 counts of rape between January 2002 and September 2006 at locations in Galway and Roscommon.

The accused denied from the witness box that he ever sexually assaulted or raped his daughter.

He told Mr Madden that he was confronted by the girl’s mother about the allegations and that she started punching him.

“Eventually I did say: ‘Whatever she says I did, I did.’ It was the only way I could think to calm her down.”

He admitted telling the woman he had not used a condom during the alleged abuse and that he asked her not to go to the gardaí.

“I would always try to calm things down by saying something that might not be true,” he said. “That’s who I am.”

Prosecuting counsel, Ms Mary Rose Gearty SC, asked him how telling a mother that he had raped her daughter was supposed to calm anything down. He replied that he said it to stop her punching him in the face and that she did eventually calm down.

During an interview with gardaí following his arrest, he told them: “Whatever she says in her statement, I’ll agree with.”

“I don’t want to cause her any more suffering and all I’m going to say is I agree with whatever she says,” he told gardai.

He said he would not deny the allegations if the case went to trial.

“I don’t see any future for me; I don’t want (her) to suffer anymore.”

During his evidence, he said he only made these admissions because he thought his daughter would get into trouble if he denied them.

He also told gardaí he had previously found letters from his daughter’s friends “telling her how to get rid of her Dad”.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Paul Carney and a jury of seven women and five men.