Man denies raping girl who saw him as ‘father figure’

Complainant tells Central Criminal Court man was ‘father figure’

The man (40) who cannot be named for legal reasons has pleaded not guilty to seven charges of raping the then teenager at his Dublin address.
The man (40) who cannot be named for legal reasons has pleaded not guilty to seven charges of raping the then teenager at his Dublin address.

A woman has told a Central Criminal Court jury that her sister's partner woke her up from being "deep asleep" while raping her.

The now 21-year-old woman told the jury the accused’s children had been in the same bedroom during the rape while she had been asleep.

She said she was aged 13 the first time the man, who she described as a “father figure”, raped her in her sister’s home and that he forced her to perform oral sex on him at the premises weeks later.

The man (40) who cannot be named for legal reasons has pleaded not guilty to seven charges of raping the then teenager at his Dublin address on dates from September 2009 to July 2013 when she was aged between 13 and 16 years old.

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He has further pleaded not guilty to oral rape and sexually assaulting the complainant by rubbing his penis on her thigh and touching her vagina at the same location on a date between August 2009 and August 2010.

In her opening address, Pauline Walley SC, prosecuting, said the jury would hear evidence that the man told gardaí he had had consensual sex with the complainant.

Ms Walley told the jury it would hear how the man made a statement that he had consensual sex twice with the then 16-years-old and that she had accused other people of rape.

Giving evidence, the complainant told Ms Walley she didn’t tell her sister, the man’s partner, because it would “break her heart”. She described acting out and feeling suicidal after the alleged abuse.

When Alex Owens SC, defending, put it to her that nothing had happened between her and his client in his bedroom when she was aged 13, she replied: “Well that’s lies”.

She added that that occasion was the first instance of abuse, that she has told the story “time and time and time again” and that it haunts her.

The trial continues with the complainant's cross-examination before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury.