A man alleged to have systematically sexually abused his daughter over several years from just before she made her First Communion has lost his High Court bid to prevent his trial.
The daughter alleged the abuse began from the age of seven, that she became pregnant in 1972 at the age of 11 and had a miscarriage in the family home. Her mother was aware of the alleged abuse and the alleged miscarriage, she alleged.
Now aged in her forties, the daughter said her delay in reporting the abuse was due to her fear of her father. She said she had not reported the abuse as a child because she was afraid that if she did, her mother and siblings would be beaten by her father whom she described as a very violent man. Her father had threatened her to that effect, she claimed.
Her decision to make a complaint to the Gardaí in 1999 arose from her being diagnosed with breast cancer, attending an assertiveness course and deciding she did not want her father crying "crocodile tears" at her funeral, she said in affidavits.
The father brought judicial review proceedings seeking orders restraining his prosecution on grounds that the delay in making the complaint and bringing the prosecution had prejudiced his right to a fair trial.
The alleged offences date back to 1968. The daughter made a complaint to the Gardaí in 1999 and the man was charged in 2000 with raping his daughter at the age of 11 and indecently assaulting her from the age of seven. His trial was adjourned pending the outcome of the judicial review.
During the hearing before Mr Justice Gilligan, the man's wife attended, seated beside him. The complainant daughter also attended the hearing but sat in a different part of the courtroom.
In his reserved judgment yesterday, Mr Justice Gilligan dismissed the man's application.
The judge said that while he found the evidence of a psychologist who assessed the daughter "formulaic", he accepted her conclusion that the delay in reporting the alleged abuse was reasonable. He was more persuaded in that regard by the evidence of the daughter herself, the judge said.
It was clear she had felt deeply ashamed of what happened and in that regard he was entitled to accept the truth of the allegations of alleged sexual abuse as made by her against her father.
She had regarded her father as a powerful dominant man within the family and she felt threatened by him, the judge said. She felt intimidated by him and believed that if she acted before she had, she would not have the mental strength to face the consequences.
When she developed breast cancer, an awareness of her poor quality of life was triggered and she made a complaint to the Garda authorities.
On the evidence before him, he was satisfied the delay in reporting the alleged abuse was reasonable and, against the background circumstances, explicable.
The man had also failed to establish that the delay had prejudiced his right to a fair trial, the judge said. While a doctor who was alleged to have treated the daughter at the time of the alleged miscarriage had since died, the man's wife and other children who were alleged to have been present at that time were available to give evidence.
The trial judge would be well capable of giving the jury appropriate directions with regard to any matter touching on delay, subject to the nature of the evidence actually adduced at the trial, Mr Justice Gilligan added.
He further rejected the man's complaint about the lack of specificity in the charges against him.
