A Westmeath man has gone on trial at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin charged with sexually assaulting his two daughters and younger brother-in-law over an eight year period.
The court was told yesterday that the man’s children will give evidence of the alleged abuses and assaults over the coming days, including one daughter who will testify that she was raped until the age of six.
Evidence will also be given that the accused sexually assaulted his own brother-in-law when the alleged victim was just 15 years of age; while an older daughter will claim that she was raped until the age of 13.
The alleged incidents were said to have happened in the family home and at various other locations in the area where the man and his family lived.
The 44-year-old accused who cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty to a total of 35 charges of sexual assault, oral rape, anal rape and rape relating to the three complainants on dates between December 1, 1991 and June 1999.
The children were aged between five and 15 years old at the time.
Mr Alexander Owens SC (with Mr Garnet Orange BL ), prosecuting, told the jury that all three complainants were living with the accused at the time and they would give evidence that he was a violent man who would regularly beat them.
He said there would be evidence that the complainants were "submitted to various rapes and assaults of a gross nature" which took place in the accused's home and other locations in the general area.
Mr Owens said the accused's younger daughter would testify that she was both sexually assaulted and raped by her father up until the time she was six years old when she left his home to live with relatives.
He said the older daughter would say that she was sexually assaulted, raped, and anally and orally raped by her father up until the time she was 13 years old.
The jury was told that they would hear from the accused's brother-in-law that he anally raped him on three occasions when he was living in his home as a 15-year-old boy.
The hearing continues before Mr Justice Daniel Herbert and a jury of seven men and five women.
