A Cork woman told a jury at the Central Criminal Court that her father had raped and indecently assaulted her. The woman, now 24, said her first recollection was of her father forcing himself on her in his bed when she was six or seven years old. She said it happened at least four times.
She also recalled a similar incident downstairs after her mother and sister went to bed and she was watching television.
It was the first day of the trial of her father (47), who denies eight charges of rape and indecent assault between 1981 and 1989 in Cork and in Co Kildare. He has pleaded guilty to one charge of indecent assault on his daughter. Mr Michael Durack SC, prosecuting, said the accused had been interviewed in an English police station in February 1998. He denied the rape allegations but agreed he had touched her genital area about three times.
The woman said the abuse stopped when she was about 12 years old. She said relations with her father had grown tense after the abuse and she told her mother about it when she was 15 years old. Her mother confronted her father before Christmas 1990 and he denied the rapes, claiming he had just touched her, the court heard.
The hearing continues before Mr Justice Patrick Smith.