Tomás Mac Ruairí
A teenage Mayo girl has claimed at the Central Criminal Court that her father made her watch porn films and then got her to repeat the acts seen on them.
The now 15-year-old girl said she recalled the first time ‘anything happened’ was when he forced her into oral sex on him after making her watch a porn video for the second time the same day.
The 48-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to 56 counts of rape, oral rape and sexual assault of his daughter on dates from 2000 to 2003 at venues in Counties Mayo and Galway.
Prosecuting counsel, Mr Brendan Grehan SC (with Mr Paul Carroll BL), told the jury in opening the trial that the offending started when she was nine years old and lasted for years.
Mr Grehan said the jury would hear evidence that her father sexually assaulted her in the family home, in his car and in a family changing unit at a Galway swimming pool. He said the accused denied her allegations when he was interviewed by gardaí.
The complainant told Mr Grehan that the first time she recalled anything was when she had been in the kitchen cleaning up and he called her into the sitting room where he was watching a pornographic film.
She said she had never seen him do this before and didn’t know before then what a porn film was. The characters were partly clothed on the film. She said her mother returned from the shops and he did nothing to her on this occasion.
The teenager told Mr Grehan that later that night when she came down from bed to get a drink of water he called her in again to the sitting room and she had to watch the porn film again.
She told Mr Grehan that he called her over closer to him and said she had to repeat what was on the film. He forced her to perform oral sex on him. This happened again a few nights later. On this occasion, she said, it lasted ‘a long time’ and she kept her eyes closed during it but she knew it was her father.
The hearing continues before Mr Justice O’Higgins and a jury of nine men and three women.
