A COUPLE in their 80s sexually assaulted and killed their profoundly disabled teenage granddaughter 11 years ago, a prosecution lawyer alleged at Belfast Crown Court yesterday.
Toby Hedworth QC said, as he opened the trial of 88-year-old David Johnston and his wife, Sarah (86), that "however surprising and however distasteful" this was what occurred.
He warned the seven men and five women on the jury that many aspects of the evidence they would hear during the trial "will be distressing and maybe unpalatable" but that at the end of it, they will have to decide on the couple's guilt or innocence "dispassionately and to set emotion aside".
The couple, from Carwood Drive, Newtownabbey, deny the manslaughter of their 14-year-old granddaughter Rebecca McKeown on March 24th, 2001, and cruelty towards her five days earlier on March 19.
The teenager, who had the body mass of a six-year-old, was confined to a specially designed wheelchair and could neither talk nor eat for herself and died after developing pneumonia.
Mr Hedworth claimed the pneumonia was brought about because of the loss of blood and shock she suffered in an alleged sexual attack while in the care of her grandparents.
He outlined how, on March 19th, Rebecca's "devoted" mother, Cheryl, took her to her parents home just around the corner.
However, when she was collected at about 8pm that evening, there was fresh blood in her nappy and although it was first thought that she might have started her first period, Mrs McKeown was suspicious and later physical examinations by numerous doctors revealed a "massive" tear to her vaginal wall that was "non-accidental" and inconsistent with an innocent explanation.
The doctors had opined, said the lawyer, that it would have been caused by the forceful insertion of an object, such as a penis, fingers or an inanimate object.