A WOMAN who claims she was sexually abused by her brother when she was aged between eight and 12 years in their family home has challenged a judge’s order preventing the media publishing her brother’s identity after he was found guilty of one charge of indecently assaulting his sister.
The action by the woman, now 39, challenges provisions of the law that prevent identification of persons charged with incest.
In the case, the woman’s brother admitted one charge of indecent assault on a date unknown between 1977 and 1978, when he was 16 and she was aged between eight and nine. However, he denied other indecent assault charge and charges of incest.
A jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court found him guilty on a charge of indecent assault between 1977 and 1981, disagreed on other indecent assault charges and acquitted him of the incest offences.
Judge Yvonne Murphy imposed a 12-month sentence, which she suspended for a two-year period.
At the end of the trial in February 2003, during which the media were prohibited from reporting the names of the parties, the judge granted an application by counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) that the anonymity of the accused and victim be preserved. The woman had asked to waive her right to anonymity, but the judge said the law prevented identification.
The woman, who is married with two children, wrote to the minister for justice, the taoiseach and the DPP on several occasions in 2003, 2004 and 2005, saying she wanted her brother identified.
She then initiated judicial review proceedings against the judge and the DPP, to which action her brother was later joined by court order as a notice party. In those proceedings, she claimed there was a clear, fundamental distinction between the conviction for indecent assault and offences under the Incest Act 1908 and that she was entitled to waive her anonymity. The case was before the High Court yesterday, but was adjourned to allow an opportunity to get the order’s precise terms.
In opposing the action, the DPP contends the judge’s order was properly made under Section 3 of the Criminal Law (Incest Proceedings) Act 1995. It also says the prohibition on publication of material likely to identify the woman’s brother operates automatically under Section 3 of the 1995 Act and is not dependent on any order. In those circumstances, the judge was not required to give reasons for making the order, it argued.
In his opposing statement, the woman’s brother says he had stood trial and had not committed any offence during the period of the suspended sentence or since. He said the offences occurred when he was 16 and that the judge took that and other factors into account in imposing sentence.
The brother argued the prohibition on reporting was correctly imposed and that publication of the matter would now lead to great public opprobrium and have the effect of imposing a greater punishment on him than contemplated by the judge.
