Woman recalls alleged rape by grandfather as evidence begins in abuse trial

A woman has started to give evidence in the trial of five people accused of various sexual offences and assaults against four members of their extended family who were children at the time of the alleged abuse.

A man (66) and his three sons, aged 38, 40 and 41, are on trial at the Central Criminal Court charged with more than 100 counts of rape and sexual assault. The 63-year-old wife of the first accused is also on trial charged with assaults and with concealing the effects of rape on one of the alleged victims, her granddaughter.

The court heard that the alleged offences occurred between September 1999 and February 2004 against the four complainants, who are related and are now aged in their 30s. The five defendants deny all the charges.

On the second day of the trial, the first complainant, now aged 30, testified that while visiting her grandparents in a rural area in Connacht, she was held down and anally raped by her grandfather on two separate occasions. She said she was around nine at the time.

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The woman told the court that she would visit her grandparents during her school holidays. She would go out on her grandfather’s bike, play in the fields and visit a pond during the trips.

Shane Costelloe SC, prosecuting, asked the woman if she remembered being out on her grandfather’s bicycle when he drove up in his car. The woman said that she did and told the court she was out with horses and her grandfather called her over.

‘Unbelievable’

She said he then grabbed her and put her face down in the back seat of his car. She said he held her down and then anally raped her.

“It was unbelievable,” she said.

Counsel asked the woman how long she believed the incident went on for.

“A few minutes, but it felt like forever,” she replied, adding that afterwards her grandfather gave her money and sweets and she then ran back to the caravan.

Asked if she knew what age she was at the time, she replied: “About nine, I think it was the year my mother told me Santa wasn’t real.”

The woman said that on another occasion she was playing in a field with her two male cousins. Her grandfather came up to them and told her two boys to go and clean out underneath the trailers.

They left and she was alone in the field with her grandfather. She said he held her down in the hay by placing his hand on her back. She said she could not get up as “he would have hit ya, and he was holding me down”. She said the grandfather then anally raped her.

“The pain was unbelievable. I still have flashbacks to this day,” she said, adding that he again gave her money before she ran away.

The trial, which is expected to last three weeks, continues before Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring.