'Utter lie': Abused girl's mother denies diminishing abuse

The mother of a 38-year old woman who has brought an action for damages against her father for sexually abusing her from the ages of two to twelve years has denied she encouraged her daughter not to tell anyone about the abuse.

The mother told the High Court she was shocked and appalled when she first learned in 1990 her daughter had been abused by her husband.

Her then 17-year old daughter had run away from home leaving a note for her mother saying she was running away and to "ask Dad what he did to me on the days you were not there."

The mother told Mr Justice Eamon deValera it took her a few days to fully accept the allegations but the day was etched in her mind forever.

She denied she had told her daughter not to tell anyone and telling her: "It was not that bad, he did not rape you." Such a claim was "an utter lie", she said.

The father was convicted and sentenced in 2006 to six years imprisonment, with two years suspended, after he pleaded guilty to five sample charges related to the most serious incidents of abuse which occurred in the 1980s when his wife was out of the house.

The now 38-year-old woman claims that when she she eventually told her mother, at around seventeen years of age, her mother told her not to tell anyone and said: "It was not that bad, he did not rape you."

It was the second day of the damages action taken by the woman who has sued her father over sustained sexual abuse on her which started when she was just two years of age and continued until she was twelve.

Liability is not contested but the defence have argued the case should be dismissed on grounds it is statute barred.

In her evidence, the 38-year old woman told the court the abuse initially involved touching her genitals but later involved her father getting her to perform oral sex and his laying on top of her naked after getting her to also remove some of her clothing. Apart from one other incident, the abuse stopped around the age of twelve after she had her first period.

She told the court her father was a violent man who beat her mother and she was afraid of him. The abuse had a devastating effect on her and she reported it to Gardai in 2004 after telling her siblings and being supported by them.

Today, the woman's mother denied encouraging her daughter not to tell anyone about the abuse. The only person she told her not to tell was her husband's brother, she said.

She was in court to give evidence, not on her husband's behalf, but for herself, she said. She did not know what to do and the situation in her home at the time was one of chaos.

She rejected claims she threatened to have her daughter put into a psychiatric hospital. She gave evidence against her husband during the criminal trial because a wrong had been committed on her daughter and she would not allow a second wrong to be committed on her, she told the court.

She said her husband returned to the family home after his release from prison in 2009 and remained there until about a month ago when she asked him to leave due to "irreconcilable differences."

She accepted her husband transferred the family home into her sole name in August of last year and agreed the mortgage had been paid off with proceeds from her husband's pension from Guinness some years ago.

Evidence in the action concluded yesterday. Mr Justice Eamon deValera has adjourned the case to a date later this month when written legal submissions are to be submitted by both sides.