A man is on trial in Waterford over 53 charges of rape and sexual assault against a child over a six-year period.
The charges allegedly occurred between 1999 and 2005 in various locations in the county.
The man, who is currently standing trial before a jury of five women and seven men, cannot be identified due to in-camera reporting restrictions.
The complainant alleged at Waterford Central Criminal Court on Tuesday that the defendant started abusing her on a regular, prolonged basis shortly before her 10th birthday.
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She said she had moved with her family to a neighbourhood in Waterford and became friendly with the accused and his wife.
. She told the court of attending sleepovers at the home of the accused and described sleeping in a single bed in the spare room and how the accused would get in behind her on it.
She said: “He would come in, close the door and get in behind me. He would start heavily breathing on my neck. I don’t remember being scared initially.”
She told the jury that during these incidents, she could feel what she later understood to be the accused’s penis against her back. She said: “I don’t think I knew what it was. I thought: ‘Oh, he’s minding me’.”
The complainant spoke about going on car journeys with the accused and being taught how to drive. It was during one of these journeys she alleged that she was forced to perform oral sex on him.
The court heard there was a marked escalation in the nature of the allegations after summer 2002. The woman described the accused watching her while she showered – masturbating and ejaculating on to her. It was after this incident she told the court the accused raped her in his bedroom. She said: “I was crying, telling him to stop, it was hurting me.”
Asked by State prosecutor Garnet Orange if such an incident happened again, the woman said it became a regular occurrence at sleepovers. She outlined a series of alleged rapes and assaults carried out by the accused at his home, in car parks, a storage space and a disabled toilet.
She said the final rape occurred on the night of the accused’s daughter’s christening. Earlier on in the evening, the accused was seen kissing her on the lips. She was in her mid-teens at the time.
Defence barrister Aidan Doyle SC said: “He [the accused] accepts that he inappropriately kissed you on the night of his daughter’s christening.”
The woman was asked if she told anyone about the abuse. She said she had told her guidance counsellor during her Junior Cert year.
Doyle, cross-examining the complainant over her claims, referred to a sample out of “thousands” of pages of counselling notes. He referred to multiple notes wherein the woman made several allegations of sexual abuse against the accused, her father and another man. Doyle referenced notes from 2017-2020 where the complainant made allegations of serious sexual violence against several people. In one note, she claimed her father impregnated her.
When the counselling notes were put to her, she responded: “I do not recall that happening at all.”
“Do you recall saying to gardaí: ‘My father sexually assaulted me’,” asked Doyle.
“Absolutely not, no,” replied the woman.
“Do you recall saying that to your counsellors?” he asked.
“I do not.”
She said she was severely traumatised and “extremely unwell” during these years. The jury heard about an incident where the complainant was allegedly attacked by several men.
She said: “I was found in an alleyway with duct tape on my arms and legs. I was 23.” She said she was discovered by a passerby who called the gardaí and was examined at the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit at University Hospital Waterford.
Doyle asked the complainant repeatedly about allegations of rape and violence within her counselling notes. She consistently replied she had no recall of such statements and that she had suffered a nervous breakdown. “I can’t speak to a time I can’t recall,”she said.
Towards the end of the proceedings, Doyle asked the woman: “Did you become pregnant at 15?”
“I did,” she replied.
“It wasn’t your father, it was [the accused]?”
“Correct,” she said.
The woman explained she was told by her family to not tell anyone about the pregnancy, including the gardaí. She said she miscarried.
“In counselling notes you repeatedly suggested that [the accused] arranged a type of backstreet abortion” Doyle said.
The woman said she clarified the claim during the counselling sessions, and reiterated she had a miscarriage, not a termination.
The trial continues in front of Judge Patrick McGrath.
