Further evidence heard at trial of Sligo man for rape of daughter
A 19-year-old woman has told the Central Criminal Court that her father smiled at her and told her she was no longer a virgin after he raped her five years ago.
The 48-year-old Sligo man has pleaded not guilty to eight counts of sexual assault and seven counts of rape at the family home between September 2005 and September 2007.
The alleged victim told prosecuting counsel, Isobel Kennedy SC, that her father sexually abused her once every two to three weeks from when she was thirteen.
She said that he would wake her up in her bed and, after cuddling her, would touch her intimately and then rape her. She said he took her virginity in March 2006.
She said that some of the alleged abuse took place in her father's bedroom when she would go there at night because of a fear of ghosts. She said he would punch her and kick her out of the bed if she asked him to stop touching her.
She said: “I would get into my Dad's bed because he was my Dad and I felt safe. I was young.”
She later added: “I was brainwashed by this man. He was my only parent. I had no Mum. I had no-one else to turn to. He was the only one looking after me. I did feel safe around my Dad at some stage.”
The woman told the court that her father controlled her and that she wasn't allowed out of the house.
She told Ms Kennedy that when she became pregnant she knew the child was her father's because she had not had sex with anyone else.
The woman agreed with defence counsel, Hugh Hartnett SC, that she withdrew a separate allegation of rape to gardaí relating to an incident in 2010 involving a former boyfriend before re-entering the complaint.
She said she could not recall making an allegation of a sexual nature against a third person.
The court heard that while the woman was living with a foster family in the north-east she reported the foster mother to gardaí and to Childlike for “emotional abuse”.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury of eight men and four women.
