20-year-old Dublin woman on trial for sexual abuse of cousin

This article contains references to rape and sexual assault involving minors. Reader discretion is advised.

By Isabel Hayes

A young woman has gone on trial in the Central Criminal Court accused of sexually abusing her younger cousin when they were both children.

The 20-year-old Dublin woman, who can’t be named for legal reasons, pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of sexual assault and one count of section 4 rape of the girl in various addresses in Dublin on dates between July 2017 and July 2019.

In relation to the section 4 rape allegation, the accused is charged with penetrating the girl with a hairbrush.

The girl was aged between 10 and 11 at the time of the alleged offending, while the accused was aged between 12 and 14.

In her opening address to the jury, Anne Rowland SC, prosecuting, said the trial would hear evidence that the girls were first cousins who had occasional sleepovers in each other’s homes or with relatives.

Ms Rowland told the jury the alleged abuse started before the accused turned 12, in which she is alleged to have been watching pornography on her tablet before asking her younger cousin to carry out sexual acts.

The complainant alleges the accused digitally penetrated her and put her mouth on her breasts and vagina, the court heard. She told the accused that she did not like it and to stop “lots of times”, Ms Rowland said.

The jury was told there are no charges before the court pertaining to these allegations as the accused was under 12 years old and had not yet reached the age of criminal responsibility.

Ms Rowland said the jury would hear that between July 2017 and July 2019, the girls had sleepovers in which these types of incidents happened again. The complainant will say that on one occasion when she tried to stop, the accused slapped her face, Ms Rowland said.

The court was played the start of a video of the complainant’s specialist garda interview which took place in February 2023 when she was 15 years old.

In her garda interview, the girl said that on the first occasion, the abuse started when the girls were playing ‘mammies and babies’ during a sleepover in their grandmother’s house which “turned into something else”. She said she believed she was aged nine or 10 at the time and that her cousin was aged 10 or 11.

She said her cousin showed her pornography on her tablet before instructing her to carry out sexual acts. She said the accused would hold her head down at times and also told her that if she did not carry out the acts, she would not be her friend any more.

“I didn’t like doing it to her and I told her that and she said she didn’t care,” the girl said in her interview.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Kerida Naidoo and a jury.