A DUBLIN father has denied physically or sexually abusing his children and said their family home “could not have been happier” before his children were taken into care.
The accused told his defence counsel that if the allegations were true, he would have pleaded guilty years ago and he claimed his son’s only “memories” of the family home were what his foster mother had told him.
The 73-year-old accused man has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to sexually assaulting his son from the age of three to six and sexually assaulting and raping two daughters between the ages of four and 11 at various locations between 1995 and 2002.
He told Blaise O’Carroll SC, defending, that he video-taped his children “from the day they were born” and had intended the videos for the children to look at when they were older.
He also said his wife did not trust social workers and wanted their visits recorded. He said he recorded access visits after the children went into care. There was also a fixed camera outside the house to keep an eye on cars.
The accused man said he had never video-taped abuse of children and that all his video tapes, which he kept in the family home, had been removed by gardaí and not one was produced in court showing such an act.
He denied that he had “a secret stash of videos showing child sex abuse” hidden elsewhere.
When asked about evidence given that his son had seen him watching his older sister naked on television, he said gardaí had taken all the videos and there was no naked child.
He told Mr O’Carroll that life in the family home “could not have been happier” and the children were going to school regularly.
When asked about his son’s claim that he did not own a coat, he replied that the child could be seen on a home video wearing a coat and that clothes were bought for all the children.
He said his son’s only memories of the family home were what his foster mother had told him.
Mr O’Carroll put it to him that his son’s evidence had portrayed him as “almost a tyrant, using any opportunity you get to beat him”. The accused replied: “It simply did not happen.”
He told Mr O’Carroll that the most he would do was shout and the child was not hit by his mother either. He said the children appeared “very happy” and could do practically whatever they liked without punishment. He said their mother cooked them meals and they were bathed every day.
He said the family would go on holidays together to locations which suited children.
The accused told Mr O’Carroll that his son was toilet-trained when he went into care but had been wetting the bed at night.
He rejected a suggestion that his son was afraid to use the bathroom because he had sexually abused him there and said the child had got the idea he was sexually abused from his foster mother.
He said his son was able to use a knife and fork but would sometimes use his fingers to eat a chip.
Mr O’Carroll put it to him that his son’s evidence was that he was constantly hungry, that he would be beaten up for going into the kitchen and that on one occasion he was starved for four days. The man replied that his wife cooked every day and if anyone wanted food they got it.
He said all the children were healthy and not “withering away” when they were taken into care.
He rejected his son’s evidence that he had been abused in his bedroom and the bathroom, saying: “There was no abuse of any sort.”
The trial continues before Mr Justice George Birmingham and a jury of eight men and four women.