The jury in the trial of a Clare man has viewed video recordings of his eldest daughter telling psychiatrists that he often sexually assaulted her and that she had told her mother.
This is the first instance since its enactment that section 16 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006 has been invoked to allow the use of a video recording of an interview as direct evidence in a criminal trial.
Garda Lorraine Fahy told Una Ní Raifeartaigh, prosecuting, that she observed all the interviews seen by the jury and that what was shown in court was an accurate record of what happened.
The 36-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of sexual assault on two of his daughters between September 2001 and December 2004 in an Offaly town.
It was day 11 of the trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
The girl was interviewed in a playroom setting in which she was seen chatting animatedly while she painted and drew and discussed her "artwork" with the health board assessor.
Four video recordings were shown to the jury. In one of them the girl was seen enthusiastically greeting the interviewer who recalled they hadn't met each other "since Christmas".
The child and the psychiatrist then discussed Barbie dolls and other matters before the conversation was directed towards her talking "about your Daddy" who, she said, was constantly "at me".
She said "I know that" when told by the psychiatrist that she was free to tell everything she wanted to talk about and that "nobody here will get cross with you".
The girl alleged that her father would be "at her" in his and her bedrooms and in the sitting room of two houses and told the interviewer she should "tell the judge that Daddy hurt me".
The psychiatrist replied that a report of whatever she told them would be prepared "for the judge".
When the second assessor entered the room during another session, the child greeted her rapturously with the announcement that she had made a badge for her and then told her there was nothing she had not been asked by the other woman that she wanted to add.
The child herself noted in one session that there had been questions she hadn't answered. "I have something to tell to you and it is really bad," she said and when told again she could talk about anything, she replied: "maybe in a little while".
She claimed her father smacked her for telling her mother about him being "at" her and ordered her not to tell her mother again.
The child couldn't say how many times "all these things" happened but agreed with the interviewer that it could have been "more than 10 times" and added that 10 times nine "made 90".
The child sat on the playroom table in one of the sessions and demonstrated with models what she claims her father would do with her lying on a bed or on the floor of their sitting room.
"I forgot to tell you this. It's really evil," she said at another time and whispered to the interviewer that her daddy would "kiss me when he was doing it".
When told by them that she was "a great girl" for the way she answered the questions and would have to answer some more for a garda, she replied "I know, I know", while playing with a replica fire-engine.
During her final assessment interview, she repeated her earlier allegations and said that afterwards her mother would go into her room and she would say "'why are your pants down?' and I would tell her why".
Garda Fahy told Ms Ní Raifeartaigh that shortly after these interviews, she spoke with the child at her home in the presence of two other gardaí.
She told the gardaí she was five or six years old when these things happened and that she told her grandmother and an uncle about them.
Garda Fahy said the child's mother made a formal complaint to gardaí in November 2004 and the girl and her sister were examined by doctors in a midlands hospital.
Gardaí collected bedclothes and the girls' clothing and handed them over to the Forensic Science Laboratory.
The trial continues before Judge Desmond Hogan.