A woman who says she endured sexual assaults by the owner of a south Dublin dry-cleaners agreed under cross-examination in the High Court yesterday that she had accepted a redundancy package offered to her by her former boss.
Karen Murphy also agreed that in the weeks before she left her job in 1999 at Craft Cleaners, Upper Baggot Street, she had asked her boss, Danny Hoey, the owner/manager of the cleaners, for a pay increase and a three-day week. Ms Murphy said she was looking for £50 or £60 a day in wages.
When she handed her notice to Mr Hoey on Saturday, June 19th, 1999, he asked her why she was leaving the cleaners, the court heard. Ms Murphy said she had agreed with him when he suggested it was about her wages.
Ms Murphy agreed that on Tuesday, June 22nd, 1999, Mr Hoey offered her a redundancy package consisting of 10 to 12 weeks' wages. She accepted that Mr Hoey had said: "If you had told me you were unhappy, I would have offered you a redundancy package. I am now offering you a redundancy package."
Later Ms Murphy said she rang Mr Hoey at home and accepted his offer. Under cross-examination by Liam Reidy SC, for Mr Hoey and Craft Cleaners, on the fifth day of her action, Ms Murphy said she received a disability benefit of €433.30 from the Department of Social Welfare from May 18th, 1999, to June 14th, 1999. She agreed a medical cert she obtained at that time was to certify an illness "unrelated" to her occupation.
"I got that benefit from the doctor to go and try to get a job elsewhere," she said. "I told the doctor I wasn't able for the job." She accepted a suggestion by Mr Reidy that there was no note made by her doctor of stress, anxiety, depression or sexual harassment.
Ms Murphy (40), formerly of Ringsend, Dublin, but now living in Wicklow, is suing Mr Hoey, of Ailesbury Road, Dublin, and Craft Cleaners Ltd for damages for injuries allegedly sustained as a result of alleged sexual assault and assault and battery allegedly perpetrated by Mr Hoey.
She has alleged Mr Hoey regularly assaulted her throughout her 19-year employment with his company. It is claimed that, from the time she began working at the dry cleaners at the age of 14 in 1980 until she left her job in 1999, she was subjected to repeated assaults, battery, infliction of emotional suffering, intimidation and abuse of a verbal, physical and sexual nature at the hands of Mr Hoey. The defendants deny the claims.
The case resumes today.