'Collusion' let assault case child down

A child who featured in pornographic photos of local children found in a neighbouring man's house was told by her parish priest afterwards that she was "a very evil child" who could have got the man in "terrible trouble" and "would burn in hell for the sins I'd done", the High Court heard yesterday.

Her mother beat her with an ash plant, told her she would be put into care "for what I had done", her neighbours had not spoken to her until after she married at 16 and her first husband had called her "a whore". When she told of her alleged abuse at confession every first Friday, she was "never told to tell someone by the priest" but was given a Rosary "as penance".

A psychiatrist said it was her view that the "collusion of the community as a whole, and particularly the collusive behaviour of the Garda and the Church at that time...resulted in a complete lack of protection for an extremely needy and deprived child".

Mr Justice Kearns refused an application by the man, now in his 70s, for an order halting his trial on several counts of indecent assault and unlawful carnal knowledge of the complainant on dates between 1960 and 1971.

The man claimed his right to a fair trial has been prejudiced by the delay in prosecuting the complaints.

He also claimed the alleged offences had been investigated by a now deceased Garda detective in the late 1960s or early 1970s and that during that time he had admitted having sexual intercourse with the girl. He claimed the detective had told him "there will never be anything about it" and it was unfair to revive the matter at this point given his age and state of health.

Opposing the application, the DPP claimed there was a Garda inquiry between 1960 and 1962 but this was solely into the taking of nude photographs of young girls by the man.

Refusing the man's application, the judge said the DPP had established an "unanswerable" case of "gross and excessive delay" in the man's bringing of the application. The man was arrested in September 1999 and, charged in April 2000, but the judicial review application was not brought until December 2001, 15 months beyond the three-month limit.

Neither was there any explanation for that delay.

The judge also said he was not satisfied the man had established that the garda investigation of the 1960s into the indecent photographs and the investigation into the alleged sexual assaults were one and the same investigations. Neither had he established the gardaí had all the relevant information in the 1960s about the alleged assaults and had brushed the matter under the carpet.

In statements, the complainant, now in her 40s, claimed her alleged abuser had once forced her to have oral sex with him in the same room where his dead mother was laid out.

Years later, she had telephoned him and confronted him about the alleged abuse and he had told her: "I never fucking molested you, you were a little prostitute...didn't I pay? Didn't I give you bars of chocolate and half crowns?"

The complainant claimed she was asked about the photographs in the 1960s but no prosecution of the man, then in his 30s, was taken at that time. About a month later, the man started to abuse her again, the woman said.

The abuse had begun when she was very young and continued into her teens. "I don't remember a period in my life up until 15 years that he wasn't molesting me," she said.

The woman said she had been forced from a very young age to have oral sex with the man. She claimed he had had full sex with her, attempted anal sex and took photos on some of these occasions.

She alleged he had tried to get her and his own young son to have sex and had sexually assaulted other children in the locality, including his own daughter.