A 49-YEAR-OLD father was yesterday found guilty of raping his daughter.
The man was found guilty of 21 charges of rape, buggery and indecent assault of his daughter. The jury will resume their deliberations this morning on 62 other charges of rape.
The woman, who is now 30, previously told the Central Criminal Court that she had been raped and sexually abused by her father over a 15-year period from when she was about five.
The man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, came before the court on a total of 105 charges but these were reduced to 83 by Mr Justice Barry White before the jury of seven men and five women began their deliberations yesterday on day six of the trial.
The man pleaded not guilty to all charges.
The court was told on Tuesday by forensic scientist Michael Burrington of the Forensic Science Laboratory that the man was almost 100 per cent more probably the father of her two children than an unrelated male.
Mr Burrington said that DNA tests confirmed that the woman’s partner was not the father of her two children. He said that there was a 99.98 per cent probability of paternity by the accused, rather than an unrelated male, in the case of one of the complainant’s children and a 99.96 per cent probability in the case of the other child.
Mr Burrington said he had received swabs from the alleged victim, her father, her two daughters and her partner.
Mr Burrington said he had generated a DNA profile to determine if either her father or her partner could be the father of her two children. The results of these tests found that the alleged victim’s partner was not the father of her two children.
The complainant told the trial last week that her father raped her “every chance he got”, including shortly after she gave birth in her late teens.
Under cross-examination last week by Martin Giblin, defending, the woman said the name of the man registered on her first child’s birth certificate was not the name of the father of the child; neither was the name on the birth certificate of her second child the name of the father.
“I was forced to put a name on the birth cert, the same thing on the other birth cert,” she said.
The woman told the court the name of her partner, “but he is not the kids’ father either”, she said. She said she went to the Garda in 2000 and her father was arrested.
The jury deliberated for two hours and 40 minutes yesterday before finding the man guilty of eight counts of buggery, eight of indecent assault and five rape charges.
The man was found guilty of eight buggery and eight indecent assault charges from 1986-88. The man was found guilty of five rape charges in 1999 and 2000. This morning the jury will consider 62 other charges of rape.