This article is from page 14 of the 2007-10-23 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 14 JPG
A YOUNG girl has told a court that her father turned into an “unkind evil daddy” and hurt her a lot.
The girl was giving evidence in the trial of her father who is accused of sexually assaulting his two daugh- ters. The 36-year-old man, who is originally from Clare and cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of sexual as- sault on the girls on dates between September 2001 and December 2004 in a County Offaly town.
Dublin Circuit Court last week heard evidence via video-link from
one daughter who told prosecuting counsel, Una Ni Raifeartaigh BL, that she couldn’t remember how her father behaved when he was minding her while her mother was at work.
The man’s other daughter told the trial that her father used his penis to put cream on a rash on her bottom.
She said she was aged between four and five when the alleged offences took place. She said her father used to lie on top of her on the bed and push her head onto the pillow.
She said he would do this to her every night her mother was at work. She said she noticed that her father used to be kind to her, but that he
became “evil” and “turned into an unkind evil daddy”.
‘“He’d hurt us a lot and he didn’t used to,” she said.
She told defence counsel, Mr John Phelan SC, in cross-examination, that she had previously said her fa- ther used the cream when she was “a baby” and in further reply to counsel she replied: “A baby is until the age of two.”
The accused’s wife told the trial that both she and her children were petrified of her husband but that they loved him. When asked by counsel if she still loved him, she replied “Yes.”
She said she first went to gardai af- ter one of her daughters told her that her father “pretended to put cream on my bottom” but had hurt her. “She said, ‘Mammy, he really hurt me’.”
She explained that she then went to the Garda station two days later to make a report.
Ms Ni Raifeartaigh told the jury in opening the case that a medical examination was performed on the children and gardai took bedclothes from the house for forensic analysis.
The trial continues in legal argu- ment and will resume on Thursday, before a jury of five women and sev- eee