This article contains references to sexual assault and rape involving a minor. Reader discretion is advised.
By Isabel Hayes
A teenage girl allegedly sexually abused by her older female cousin told gardaí that her mother found notes in her bedroom written by the accused saying she wanted to have sex with her, a trial has heard.
The 20-year-old Dublin accused woman, who can’t be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court 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.
The court has heard they are first cousins who, at the time of the alleged offences, had occasional sleepovers in each other’s homes or with relatives.
The jury has been told that the alleged abuse started before the accused turned 12 years of age, when she is alleged to have been watching pornography on her tablet before asking her younger cousin to carry out some sexual acts. There are no charges pertaining to these allegations as the accused had not yet reached the age of responsibility.
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”, Anne Rowland SC, prosecuting, told the jury in her opening address.
A video recording of the complainant’s specialist garda interview, which took place in February 2023 when she was 15 years old, continued to be played.
The girl described a number of occasions when she was having a sleepover with her cousin when she said they played a game that was initially called ‘mammies and babies’ but which became known as the ‘Justin Bieber game’.
The girl said her cousin told her she should pretend that she (the accused) was Justin Bieber as the younger girl liked the pop star at the time. The girl said the accused made her carry out sexual acts and carried out sexual acts on her when they were in bed together, often after watching pornographic videos.
The girl told gardaí that she did not like it and that she told her cousin she didn’t like it, but that the accused said she “didn’t care”.
She said on one occasion when she was aged 10 or 11 and her cousin was aged 13 or 14, the accused got a hairbrush and inserted it into her.
The girl was staying over in the accused’s home at the time, the court heard. “I just thought she was going to brush my hair or something,” the girl said. She said afterwards her body felt “weird”.
She outlined two further sleepovers where she alleged the accused slapped her in the face because she (the girl) wanted the game to “stop”. She said that on one occasion while staying in her house, the accused figured out the code on the girl’s tablet to bypass the kids section and looked up porn online. The girl said her mother later saw the pornography on the tablet search engine history.
She said the accused would tell her not to tell anyone and that it was only a game. “She said there was no point telling anyone because no-one would believe me.”
The girl said the abuse stopped when the accused tried to kiss her one day while in the girl’s bedroom and she pushed her away.
She said the accused never talked to her about what happened and wouldn’t look at her when they encountered each other after that. She said there was one occasion at a family event when the accused followed her into the bathroom and took photos of her while she was on the toilet by sticking her phone under the stall.
She said she eventually told her mother about the alleged abuse while she was stressed trying to study for exams. She said her mother had previously found notes in her bedroom written by her cousin saying she wanted to have sex with her.
She said she initially told her mother neither she nor her cousin knew what sex was but, on the night in question, she started the conversation by asking her mother if she remembered the notes she had found.
“I told her my cousin had been doing things to me that I didn’t like and made me do things to her,” she said.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Kerida Naidoo and a jury.