A 12 YEAR OLD girl was jeered at by three gardai at Raheny Garda station in the late 1960s when she complained of sexual abuse by her older brother, the Central Criminal Court was told yesterday.
The abuse continued and she had a child by her brother in the early 1970s. Matters only came to light in August 1994 when a social worker approached gardai about the procedure for sex cases.
Two months later, on October 16th, 1994, the defendant got into his sister's house in a drunken state and raped her. On November 2nd he sexually assaulted her.
On October 27th, 1994, the victim, now a 44 year old Dublin mother of seven, and the social worker went to gardai. The woman told the story of the abuse which began when she was a child.
In April this year her brother, now aged 46, pleaded guilty to having sexual intercourse with her on August 9th, 1971, on an unknown date in 1974 and again between January and March 1978. He also pleaded guilty to the rape and sex assault incidents in 1994.
The case has been adjourned, and the defendant is in custody for sentencing next Friday.
The woman told the court her mother had given her a "hiding" at the age of 12 when she told her about the abuse. Both parents had been hard drinkers.
She was put out of the house so she went down to the Garda station where she spoke to a sergeant and other gardai.
"The police officer said `Did you not enjoy it? All that fondling, you must have got something out of it'," the woman told Mr Michael Durack SC, prosecuting.
At the outset of the case, Mr Justice Carney said he was very concerned by suggestions that the victim was "jeered by three gardai and sent packing" when she tried to report the abuse as a child.
The social worker who brought her to gardai in 1994 said the victim was receiving counselling but had been suicidal since reporting the matter. She had taken an overdose of pills but was "got in time".
A garda who has dealt with the woman and gained her trust since 1994 agreed with the judge that she found the victim believable. She also accepted the woman's account of how the Raheny gardai had treated her.
The garda agreed with Mr Brendan Grogan SC, defending, that the woman was timid and that she had revealed in interviews that her own daughter had been sexually assaulted. She told the garda: "I have never had a life".
Since the complaint in 1994 various people had called to her house and used "heavy threats and physical beatings" to dissuade her from continuing with the case. The incidents had been investigated but nobody was arrested.
The garda said the rapist was interviewed in November 1994 and he admitted having sex with his sister from when he was aged 15. He said he began interfering with her when he was aged about nine.