Several relatives of a woman and her younger cousin, who she is accused of sexually abusing at childhood sleepovers, have given evidence for the defence.
The grandmother of the accused woman and the complainant told defence senior counsel Dominic McGinn that the girls never slept over together in her house as has been alleged.
A number of aunts and uncles of the accused and the complainant gave evidence for the defence saying the two girls were not particularly friendly when they were growing up.
The Dublin woman (20), who cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of sexual assault and one count of section 4 rape of the girl in various addresses in Dublin on dates between July 2017 and July 2019.
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The section 4 rape charge relates to the alleged penetration of the girl with a hairbrush.
The girl was aged between 10 and 11 at the time of the alleged offending, while the accused was aged between 12 and 14.
The prosecution alleges the abuse occurred when the girls had sleepovers in each other’s homes and, on one occasion, in the home of a mutual aunt.
The jury has been told the alleged abuse started before the accused turned 12 years of age. The accused was allegedly watching pornography on her tablet and then asked her younger cousin to carry out sexual acts while they were staying in their grandmother’s house. There are no charges pertaining to these allegations as the accused had not yet reached the age of criminal responsibility.
Their grandmother told defence counsel on Monday that while the accused woman stayed in her house on occasions, the younger girl only stayed there once and the two did not sleep over together.
When asked by defence counsel if she would ever lie under oath to help her older granddaughter, the woman said: “I do not lie, and I am telling the truth.”
The accused took the stand last week and denied the allegations, telling the court: “None of it is true.” She said she had just one sleepover with her cousin in their aunt’s house when their aunt stayed in the room.
On Monday, this aunt told the court the two girls had just one sleepover when there was another niece present. She said she stayed in the room until the three girls were asleep.
She agreed with prosecuting counsel that she could not recall this sleepover when she first gave a statement to gardaí.
The accused woman’s mother told the court the girls did not have sleepovers in each other’s homes or in their grandmother’s.
She told the court she was estranged from her brother (the complainant’s father) for a time.
She listed a couple of times she brought her niece to the cinema and McDonald’s. She said these excursions did not include sleepovers.
When asked if the girls were friends, the mother said: “Not really, no.”
“They were such different kids,” she said. “[My daughter] is very soft and sweet. I’m not saying [the complainant] isn’t. They are very different.” She said her daughter would “play with the little ones” at family gatherings while the complainant “sat with the adults”.
She told the court her daughter had her first boyfriend in 2021.
The cousins’ mutual uncle also gave evidence for the defence. He is a brother of the accused’s mother and of the complainant’s father. He said he used to have a good relationship with his brother but relations have since “broken down” and “he cut me off”.
He said the cousins were “like chalk and cheese” and “weren’t pals”.
Four other relatives of both the accused and the complainant gave evidence for the defence.
The trial continues.
