10-year-old describes alleged abuse by father

A GIRL aged 10 has told the Central Criminal Court that her father lay on top of her and hurt her when she was eight.

The girl is one of five children of a man on trial for the sexual assault of a son and daughter and for failing to provide all five children with adequate food and clothing in the family home.

The accused man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to the rape and sexual assault of his daughter and the sexual assault of his now 13-year-old son on dates in 2007.

He also pleaded not guilty to the wilful assault of his three sons in a manner likely to cause unnecessary suffering, injury to the children’s health or seriously affect their wellbeing on dates between January and September 2007.

He further denied the wilful neglect of all five children, now aged between 7 and 14 years old, by failing to provide adequate clothing or food.

The 10-year-old girl addressed Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne’s court via video link yesterday.

Asked about the night of the alleged assault on September 27th, 2007, she said she went to bed wearing the clothes she had been wearing that day – a Mickey Mouse top and a skirt.

She told Isobel Kennedy SC, prosecuting, that her father got into bed with her and “he took my clothes off and all that”. He told her what he was going do to and then lay on top of her, she said.

“He went up and down, like,” she said. The girl said her father put his “private” inside her “private” and started to go up and down. Asked if it hurt, she said “a little bit”.

She said the family went to the Garda station the next day and she got chips. That was the last time she saw her father. She said she did not have access visits with her mother and brothers anymore.

Blaise O’Carroll SC, defending, asked the girl why she did not call out for help when her father lay on top of her. “I didn’t really know what was going on,” she said.

She said she had complained at a child assessment unit about her Dad interfering with her. She said she had also been interfered with by her brothers, her mother and her younger sister.

Mr O’Carroll asked her when she discovered that her father [the accused] was not, in fact, her father. She said she thought her mother had told her. “I was kind of a bit confused.”

Mr O’Carroll asked if her mother had told her to make up negative stories about her father. “Well, sometimes,” she said.

“Was there a plan that Mum would get you to make up stories that would make your Dad look bad and make her look good so that all of you would be going back into Mum’s care again?” he asked.

“I think so, yeah,” she said.

Was the story of what happened with her father in her bedroom one of those made-up stories or was it real, Mr O’Carroll continued. “It’s real,” she said. “I was talking about something that actually happened.”

Mr O’Carroll pointed to her statement to gardaí in which she claimed her father had “sexed” her then four-year-old sister before he had “sexed” her. Why had she not mentioned that in court, he asked. “I don’t think I remembered,” she replied.

The court also heard from her eight-year-old brother, who said his father had hit him “lots of times” and had slapped him on the bum with a belt. Asked if it had hurt, he said “yeah”.

He said he got on “fine” with his mother. Asked by Mr O’Carroll if she kept an eye on the children as they played outside, he said “no”. “She would be always lying down.”

The children were removed from the family home on September 28th, 2007. The eight-year-old boy was sent to a foster family and the father of that family told the court the boy was “quite dirty” when he arrived. He ate hungrily, gulping down whatever food was offered, but never asked for more, the man said.

He described him as a good-humoured young lad who settled in well with the family. The boy never discussed his family with the foster parents, the man said.

The case continues.