Jury in case of woman accused of sexually abusing her brother fail to reach verdict

A jury has been unable to reach agreement on whether a 46 year old woman was guilty or not of sexually assaulting her younger brother at their home in Co Cork when she was in her early 20s and he was still attending primary school.

The jury of six men and six women were unable to reach a majority 10-2 or 11-1 verdict on any of the ten charges against the woman following almost four hours of deliberation on Monday at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.

The woman, who can’t be named for legal reasons, denied nine charges that she sexually assaulted her brother on dates between May 1st 1993 and June 30th 1997 at their family home in Co Cork and one charge that she sexually assaulted him in Dublin between April 1st and April 30th 1995.

The complainant had told the jury that the abuse usually involved his sister taking his hand and getting him to massage her breast though on one occasion, she got him to insert his finger in her vagina.

He said that on one of the first occasions she sexually assaulted him, she said ‘Do you want to do something’ and at the time, he didn’t know what she meant but later he began to realise that anytime she said it, it meant that she was going to start something of a sexual nature.

“It was like I was on autopilot — I didn’t do anything to stop her,” said the complainant, adding that the assaults usually happened at their family home when their parents were out and that the assaults ended when he turned 13 after he completed first year in secondary school.

Cross-examined by defence counsel, Vincent Heneghan SC, the complainant denied he only made the allegation of sexual abuse in 2015 in order to use it as a bargaining chip when his sister applied to the family law courts for access to his young son.

School board of management

He explained that he had put the entire matter behind him and had tried to get on with his life as best he could after severing ties with his sister and his parents but when they applied for access to his son, he became concerned for his son’s welfare as he knew what his sister had done to him.

He said that when he learned during the course of the access application by his sister that she was on a school board of management, he became even more concerned and resolved to report the abuse to the gardaí but on legal advice, he waited until the access application had been dealt with.

The woman didn’t go into evidence during the four day trial but she told interviewing gardaí she was disgusted by the accusations. She said nothing of a sexual nature ever occurred between herself and her younger brother and that his allegations against her were “total lies.”

“I wish to state nothing of a sexual nature ever happened between my brother and I. I did occasionally babysit. Nothing of a sexual nature ever happened. There were very acrimonious family law proceedings. I was not aware of any problems between my brother and I before that.”

Her brother stopped talking to members of his family in 2009 and when the family sought access through the family law courts in 2015 to his child that was the first time she heard the allegation that she sexually abused her brother in the 1990s, she told gardaí.

“There was a suggestion that if I withdrew my application (for access to the child) nothing would be said,” the woman told gardaí, adding that she was extremely shocked, disgusted and upset to hear the allegations. “I looked after him as a sister. Nothing happened and it is very upsetting,” she said.

On Monday after the foreman of the jury confirmed they were deadlocked and were not going to reach agreement Judge Brian O’Callaghan thanked the jury for their patience and attention in the case and discharged them and remanded the accused on bail to appear again on March 2nd.