Three brothers facing more than 60 charges of sexual abuse of their two sisters and a young niece yesterday abandoned High Court applications to stop their trials proceeding.
The withdrawals came in the wake of a number of Supreme Court decisions which overturned High Court orders prohibiting the trials - on the grounds of unreasonable delay between the alleged offence and complaint - of persons on sex charges.
Counsel for the three men told Mr Justice Quirke they had decided to withdraw their applications, in which they had sought to prevent their clients' trials on the grounds of a "significant" delay between the alleged offences and their being reported. The applications had been properly made, given the state of the law at the time. However, following a number of recent Supreme Court decisions which upheld appeals by the DPP against High Court orders preventing the trials of a number of persons on sex charges, the law had changed.
Mr Justice Quirke dismissed the appeals, which were brought by way of judicial review.
A fourth brother, who is charged with one count of rape against a named sister between 1983 and 1985, when she was aged 14 or 15 and he was some three years older, proceeded with his application for an order prohibiting his prosecution.
After hearing both sides, the judge refused to prohibit the trial. He said the onus of proof was on the applicant to prove his trial had been unreasonably delayed and there was a serious risk that he would receive an unfair trial because his capacity to defend himself was prejudiced.
The judge accepted that because of the the delay - some 13 to 15 years - there was a presumption of unreasonableness and possible prejudice, and therefore the DPP would have to give an explanation for the delay.
He had evidence about the cause of the delay from the complainant and from a psychiatrist who had interviewed her with her daughter. He was satisfied the sister had not made a complaint until 1995 and that the reason was because, on her account, she had been sexually abused by her brothers from the age of seven, that her father was of no assistance to her and her mother was fearful of the violence of her sons, of whom the applicant was one.
During one act of sexual interference, the sister had said, she complained to her mother but got no support and was beaten upstairs to her bedroom. It was plausible that the continuation of the alleged abuse resulted in fear and oppression and that the sister's life only began to gain a sense of organisation from about 1994, when she got a council house away from her home.
As soon as she could, in a particular situation where she believed her own daughter was being interfered with and that her brothers were begetting children in illicit relationships, she made a complaint.
The judge found that the sister's account could reasonably explain the delay in bringing the prosecution against her brother. In the circumstances of the explanation offered the delay was not unreasonable. He also found the 12 months between when the complaint being made and a charge being brought was not unreasonable.
Notwithstanding his finding that the delay between the complaint and the alleged offence was reasonable, he had to consider whether it caused prejudice. The nature of abuse offences was that they occurred when two persons were alone together, and the prosecution depended on the credibility of those persons. It was clear that difficulties from the delay accrued to both sides. The delay was not such as would prevent the applicant from obtaining a trial in due course of law. He refused to prohibit the prosecution.
Earlier, making the application, Mr Giollaiosa O Lideadha said his client's situation was significantly different from the other brothers. Only one charge was made against him - a charge of rape against a named sister between 1983 and 1985. In contrast, multiple offences were alleged against the others. The sister making the allegations painted an "utterly horrific picture", Mr O Lideadha said. His client had denied the allegation from the first instance and stood over that denial. He denied involvement in rotational abuse.
The complaint against his client was first made in 1995, 10 to 12 years after the offence was alleged to have occurred. His client could not get a fair trial because of that delay, and his ability to make a proper defence was prejudiced. Mr Peter Charleton SC, for the State, said that in this case the State was saying the family was utterly dysfunctional, and there was an uncontested psychiatric report which said the delay could be explained by sexual abuse occurring in a family where the complainant had no support.
