Girl says she did not tell women about father's abuse

An 11-year-old girl who claims her father used to sexually assault her has agreed she could have told women in her house about…

An 11-year-old girl who claims her father used to sexually assault her has agreed she could have told women in her house about it but did not.

In reply to Mr Patrick Gageby SC, defending, she denied she once took a music box back from Germany without permission and that her father had been angry with her when the owners telephoned about it.

The girl told the jury of six men and six women at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court she was given the music box as a present and anyone who said otherwise would be telling lies. She agreed she was given a lot of toys, dogs and ponies by her father while she lived with him in the pub he owned, and she would have had more than other children in her area.

She had a lot of freedom to do what she wanted "within the rules" her father laid down. "I was actually a spoiled brat," she said. Her father has pleaded not guilty to three charges of sexually assaulting her by simulating sexual intercourse, by rubbing against her and by inserting his tongue in her mouth, and one charge of attempted unlawful carnal knowledge.

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The offences are alleged to have happened on dates between July 1993 and November 1997.

On the second day of the trial the girl denied she ever went through the pockets of the pub's staff members or stole money from the till. She agreed with Mr Gageby it would be wrong if anyone said she did those things.

The incidents she alleged happened with her father were generally on Saturday nights when he became drunk but the first time was on a different night when both shared the same room. It had happened before that abroad but that was the first time in Ireland. She agreed she had told the social worker she first spoke to about it and had not told "a lot" of other social workers she met since then. She kept it to herself "to tell the judge as he would be a lot more interested in it".

The girl told Mr Gageby she wrote details of her father's alleged abuse of her in two diaries.

One of these was burned by a girl who was living in the pub with her mother for a time and the other one was abroad in her home. The burned one recorded "days, and months and years" and the second one had more details of the alleged incidents. She said she had not showed her remaining diary to anyone, even her mother.

The hearing continues before Judge Michael White.