Cork woman: Rape claim against brother nothing to do with inheritance

The accused has pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

A Cork woman who claims that her brother raped and indecently assaulted her from the age of 12 denied on Thursday that her complaints were motivated by a row over the inheritance of the family home.

“The house had nothing to do with what (defendant’s name) done to me. What (name) done to me had nothing to do with bricks and mortar,” the complainant testified under cross-examination by defence senior counsel Siobhán Lankford.

Ms Lankford said: “These allegations were made essentially out of the blue 43 years after the event and were made in the context of your daughter making allegations against another brother.” 

The complainant replied: “I know in my heart this should have been done a long time ago. I was a coward and I know that.” 

She denied being motivated by anything to do with a dispute between siblings over the inheritance of a house and she said she was doing it “to protect some other child. (Defendant’s name) will do this again.” The complainant described the defendant yesterday as, ‘sneaky’, ‘a slimeball’ and ‘a monster’.

There was evidence on the first day of the trial that the complainant in this case was raped by her own father and had a baby as a result. Ms Lankford SC referred to the complaints made against the defendant in this trial and suggested on Thursday: “Even if things happened to you, my client was not the person who did those things to you. Your memory  — 45 years on — is faulty. For whatever reason the allegations you are making are not true of my client. They may be true of someone else.” 

The complainant replied that they were 100% true of the defendant, her brother.

“Whether there is bad blood, (name) did what he did to me. He did these things. No one else. No matter what arguments were in my family,” she said.

Earlier on Thursday, prosecution senior counsel Tom Creed asked her how often these things happened.

“I cannot say every week. It could have been every couple of weeks. He could not get you for a month but you knew that every few weeks he was going to do these horrible things as soon as he got the opportunity,” she said.

Regarding the making of the complaint, she said: “It is so hard to keep something locked in your head. It is so hard to get everything out and in front of someone you never met. It is just very hard.

Ms Lankford said the complainant had described the defendant exercising with weights but she said he never had weights. The complainant replied, “(Name) would use you as his weights. I was his weights. The weights were me.” 

The complainant, who made her Confirmation in 1975, testified that sexual incidents with her brother commenced at that time and went on until he got married and left the family home in October 1978.

The complainant’s brother, who is five years older than her, is on trial before Ms Justice Mary Rose Gearty and a jury of eight men and four women on five counts of raping her and 28 counts of indecent assault. He pleaded not guilty to all the charges against him at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork.

The trial continues.