Family sex abuse trial told older brother raped sister when she was 12
Isabel Hayes
A woman has told a Central Criminal Court jury that she woke up in her bed at the age of 12 to her older brother anally raping her.
She told the court that after she squealed in pain, he jumped up and left her there, “like (she) was nothing”.
The now 24-year-old woman was giving evidence in the trial of seven men who are accused of familial sexual abuse across a lengthy period of years. She is the third complainant in the case, to be referred to as Complainant 3 in the reporting of the case.
Her brother, to be referred to as Accused C, has pleaded not guilty to one count of anally raping her on a date between September 2013 and September 2014.
This man, now 34, is on trial facing a further 49 counts against two other sisters, Complainant 1 and Complainant 2.
His six co-accused, who are aged between 32 and 55, are on trial in relation to a total of 98 counts against them pertaining to Complainant 1, a deaf woman. The abuse against this woman is alleged to have occurred within the State over a 17-year period from 1996 until 2013. The accused men are her three uncles and four brothers. The accused men deny all the charges against them.
None of the parties involved can be named for legal reasons.
On Tuesday, Complainant 3 gave evidence to the jury via videolink. When asked by Gerardine Small SC, prosecuting, if she grew up in a happy home, she replied: “No.”
“There were always arguments between mammy and daddy,” she told the court. “It would start with daddy, he was always drinking.” She said her father would “sometimes” get violent with her mother and with her brothers, who were living there at the time.
She said social workers became involved with the family when her father (who is not on trial) beat one of her sisters for not going to school.
In relation to the allegation before the court concerning her older brother, Accused C, the woman said that on the night in question, she was asleep in the room she shared with her two sisters.
She said she thought it was around winter time because the three beds were close together and beside the radiator to keep them warm. She said she was wearing a pink Barbie nightdress.
She said the door was open because she was afraid of the dark and that her sister used to sing her to sleep every night.
She said she woke up on her side to find her brother behind her, anally raping her. She said the pain woke her up. “It was like a sting,” she told the court.
She said she “squealed in pain and (he) left and that was it. Nothing was said.”
She said he “started fixing himself up” and then left the room and went downstairs. “He left me there like I was nothing,” she told the court.
“It was like he was more afraid he was going to get caught,” she later added. She said he was wearing dark jeans with a faded pattern, a shirt and a sleeveless black jacket at the time, that he smelled of alcohol and aftershave and was freshly shaved.
The woman said she went to the bathroom where she discovered she was bleeding, before one of her sisters came into her and they went back to bed.
The woman told prosecuting counsel that Accused C did not live in the family home at that time and she agreed she “didn't know him much” when she was growing up.
She said she never spoke to him about what happened that night.
Under cross-examination from Karl Finnegan SC, defencing Accused C, the woman agreed that in her statement to gardaí, which was made in October 2021, she said that he had a “beard and stubble”.
“My recollection was not correct then,” she said of her garda statement. “He was clean-shaved.”
She agreed she had “extremely limited contact” with Accused C and that she never grew up with him. “He was never really around,” she said.
When asked if this was happening to her as she was waking up, the woman replied: “I woke up and his penis was inside me.”
The woman agreed there was no light on in the bedroom on the night in question. When asked by defence counsel how she was able to give “such detailed features” about him, she said there was a light shining into the room from the bathroom.
The trial continues before Ms Justice Biggs and an extended jury panel of 15 jurors. It is set down for four months.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie/services/helpline/ or visit Rape Crisis Help.
