A 46-year-old woman told gardaí she was disgusted over an accusation by her brother that she repeatedly sexually assaulted him over a four-year period starting when he was just nine years old and she was in her early 20s.
The woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told gardaí nothing of a sexual nature ever occurred between herself and her younger brother, and that his allegations against her were all untrue and were “total lies”.
The woman has denied nine charges that she sexually assaulted her brother on dates between May 1st, 1993, and June 30th, 1997, at their family home in Co Cork, and one charge that she sexually assaulted him in Dublin between April 1st and April 30th, 1995.
On Friday at Cork Circuit Criminal Court, the jury of six men and six women heard memos of an interview when the woman was questioned by detectives about the allegations of sexual abuse which her brother made against her in late 2015.
“I wish to state nothing of a sexual nature ever happened between my brother and I. I did occasionally babysit. Nothing of a sexual nature ever happened. There were very acrimonious family law proceedings. I was not aware of any problems between my brother and I before that.”
Access sought
Her brother stopped talking to members of his family in 2009, and he and his partner had a baby in 2013. The family sought access through the family law courts in 2015, and that was the first time she heard the allegation that she sexually abused her brother in the 1990s, she told gardaí.
“There was a suggestion that if I withdrew my application [for access to the child], nothing would be said,” the woman told gardaí, adding that she was extremely shocked, disgusted and upset to hear the allegations.
“I looked after him as a sister. Nothing happened and it is very upsetting,” she said.
She told gardaí her brother would phone her at 2am or 3am when he was a student to get a lift home, and she would pick him up. Later, when they were both living away from home, he would call to her apartment with his washing and she would give it back to him cleaned and ironed, she said.
The woman’s brother had earlier told the jury the abuse usually involved his sister taking his hand and getting him to massage her breast. On one occasion, he alleged, she had got him to massage her vagina before getting him to insert his finger in her vagina.
He said that on one of the first alleged occasions of sexual assault, she had said “Do you want to do something?” and at the time he had not known what she meant, but that later he began to realise that any time she said it, it meant she was going to start something of a sexual nature.
“It was like I was on autopilot – I didn’t do anything to stop her,” said the complainant, adding that the assaults usually happened at their family home when their parents were out, and that they ended when he turned 13, after he completed first year in secondary school.
Afraid to tell parents
He said he was afraid to tell his parents as his father was a chronic alcoholic who drank almost every day and used to beat his mother, his sister and himself, and he feared that if he told his parents he would be blamed and his father would give him a beating.
“First of all, when things started, I didn’t quite understand what it was – when I came to realise it was something that was wrong and problematic, I felt I would be seen as at fault or responsible, and given the nature of how things were in our house, I would be hit or beaten.”
On Friday, after prosecution barrister Noel Whelan BL closed the State’s case, the woman’s counsel Vincent Heneghan told the court the defence would not be calling any evidence. Both sides then made their closing arguments in the case.
It is expected the jury will retire to consider its verdict on Monday after Judge Brian O’Callaghan formally charges its members on what will be the fourth day of the trial at Washington Street Courthouse in Cork.
