A woman who alleges she was raped twice by her grandfather when she was a child, has told a court that she was also raped four times by two of her uncles.
The woman who continued giving her evidence to the Central Criminal Court, via video link today, is one of four people who allege they were raped and sexually assaulted as children, by members of their extended family between 1999 and 2005.
Four men – three sons and their father, aged 37, 40, 41 and 66 are on trial charged with more than 100 offences, mainly sexual assault and rape.
The younger men's mother, aged 63, is also on trial, charged with assisting an offender and with assaulting two of the complainants.
The defendants have pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
Prosecuting counsel, Shane Costello, has told the jurors that the accused and the complainants were all part of the same extended family who were members of the travelling community. He said each of the two men and two women alleged they had been abused in a sexual manner by some of the accused. He warned the jury to approach the case in a dispassionate way even though they were likely to hear graphic and unsavoury evidence.
Warning: Some readers may find details in this report distressing
The first complainant to give evidence, is now 30-years-old. She described how she would stay with her grandparents in various locations around Ireland during school holidays.
Yesterday, she told the court she had been raped twice by her grandfather, the oldest of the accused men, and given money and sweets afterwards.
Today she described being raped a number of times by the second and third named defendants who are her uncles, now aged 41 and 37.
After describing an incident where she vomited after the third defendant raped her, she said her uncle stood by and laughed at her. She told the court "it was just a game to him, he didn't care".
On another occasion, she said this same uncle raped her and afterwards, she ran to the trailer and told her grandmother what he had done to her. She said her grandmother did not believe her and took a plastic stick used to clean chimneys and hit her across the back.
The woman said her grandmother put an adult nappy on her and would not let her go home to her parents.
The woman was cross-examined by lawyers for the defendants this afternoon.
She denied a suggestion by Senior Counsel, Michael Bowman for her grandfather, that he never had the car she described and did not do the things she had told the court about. She replied "he did".
She said she had not mentioned her grandfather in her first statement to gardaí in July 2017, because she was in fear. When he suggested to her that nothing ever happened with her grandfather in the locations she had described, she said: "No, stop it. Why are you doing this to me."
Senior Counsel, James McGowan for her 41-year-old uncle asked the woman if she remembered denying in an assessment in 2011 that any childhood sexual and physical abuse ever happened. She said she recalled the assessment but did not remember saying that.
Mr McGowan put it to her that she had made an allegation of rape against her ex-boyfriend and his friend during another assessment in 2015. She told him that she did not want to tell the doctors "who really done it to me".
Defence counsel, Dominic McGinn representing her 37-year-old uncle put it to the woman that he had never lived at the site where she alleged one of the incidents took place. She said he did and that her uncle was lying.
And Defence counsel, Paul Murray said his client - the woman’s grandmother - had instructed him that she had never hit the woman with a stick or anything else. The woman replied "she is lying".
The oldest defendant is charged with raping his granddaughter twice between 2002 and 2004 when she was between nine and 11-years-old. He is also charged with 20 counts of raping one of his nephews when he was between nine and 12-years-old and with assaulting the same nephew.
The man’s 41-year-old son is charged with raping the same girl, who is his niece, between May 2000 and September 2001. This son is also charged with 28 charges of raping and sexually assaulting his sister between 1999 and 2005 when she was aged between 13 and 18-years-old.
His 40-year-old brother is charged with 31 counts of raping and sexually assaulting the same sister also between 1999 and 2005.
A third brother, who is 37-years-old is charged with 32 counts of raping and sexually assaulting the same sister. This brother is also charged with two counts of raping his niece and two counts of raping a male cousin.
The charge of assisting an offender against the 63-year-old woman relates to this brother. Mr Costello said the allegation was that when the young girl came to the woman to tell her she had been raped, the woman instead of helping her, took steps to conceal the fact that an offence had been committed.
The case will continue next week and is expected to last for more than three weeks.
