‘No child could make this up, it was too graphic,’ abuse case told

No child could have "made up" the type of graphic detail provided in the case of a woman suing her father for allegedly abusing her, and facilitating neighbours to do the same, a social worker told the High Court.

The social worker, a member of a religious order, was giving evidence on the third day of an action before a judge and jury. The case is taken by a woman, now in her 30s, who says she was abused in her family home and in up to nine other houses in her area by her father, mother, and a number of others when she was aged between four and six in the mid-1980s.

The father denies the incidents ever happened.

The court heard in 1986, the mother left the family home with her two daughters and went to a refuge. The children were later fostered after the mother was also accused of being an abuser.

The court heard that two years after they left the family home, when the woman was aged eight, she gave a statement to gardai outlining the alleged abuse.

A file was sent to the DPP who decided not to prosecute.

She made a complaint in her own right as an adult in 2010 but again the DPP decided not to prosecute.

On Thursday, the court heard from the first social worker whose care the child came under after the family left their home. She was asked by counsel for the defendant did she (social worker) not consider it extraordinary that the child, in a drive around her area after she was in care, had identified nine different houses where abuse was alleged to have taken place.

“It was not within my experience to date to have a case like this”, the social worker replied.

Too graphic

A second social worker, who is also a member of a religious order, told the court she was the child’s key social worker from 1990 until she became an adult.

She was nine when they first met and she disclosed over time the various abuses inflicted on her as a child.

Asked by Sasha Gayer SC, for the woman, what was her impression of those accounts she replied: “My understanding was no child could make this up, it was too graphic in detail”.

The child was terrified of her father and wanted no contact, she said.

As a teenager and a young woman, the social worker found her to be “very wounded and broken” and found it difficult to get in touch with past experiences because she was so traumatised.

Cross-examined by Bernard Madden SC, for the father, the social worker said she was not aware that as an adult the woman had spoken about giving her father “a second chance”.

This did not surprise her because abuse victims often want the opportunity to speak to the abuser to state what happened to them.

She accepted the woman at one time, as an adult, said she had no memory of anything before she went into care. However, she said, there were many other times when the woman said she did remember it and repeatedly said she had been abused at the hands of her parents.

Post-traumatic stress

A clinical psychologist, who first came into contact with the child in 1987 when the family moved into a women’s refuge, said when her foster placement broke down, the child returned for psychology sessions.

She was quite distressed and talking about herself in unpleasant terms including calling herself ugly.

While she was very resistant to talking about what went on, she used dolls and drew pictures to show what she was talking about. What she showed was quite concerning because they indicated there was some kind of sexual activity going on, the doctor said.

The doctor believed the child was suffering from what we today call post traumatic stress disorder.

The hearing continues.