{"id":530247,"date":"2026-07-03T00:10:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T00:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/530247\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T00:10:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T00:10:13","slug":"daughter-of-garda-charged-with-child-cruelty-and-rape-of-wife-tells-court-she-kept-journal-detailing-events-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/530247\/","title":{"rendered":"Daughter of garda charged with child cruelty and rape of wife tells court she kept journal detailing events \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The eldest daughter of a garda<\/a> charged with raping his wife and child cruelty has told the trial of her father that she probably did show a journal she was keeping to her mother.<\/p>\n

The now 24-year-old was giving evidence in the Central Criminal Court<\/a> trial of her father who has pleaded not guilty to two counts of child cruelty against her on unknown dates between 2007 and 2024. <\/p>\n

He has also denied a charge of assault causing her harm on an unknown date between late 2021 and early 2022, after she had turned 18.<\/p>\n

The 48-year-old man has also pleaded not guilty to two counts of raping his wife, this woman\u2019s mother, on dates in 2009 and 2021, and to child cruelty of another, younger, daughter.<\/p>\n

All parties in the case have a statutory right to anonymity.<\/p>\n

The alleged offending took place at two locations where the family was living at the relevant times.<\/p>\n

The wife of the accused has described two incidents, one in 2009 and another in 2021, when she said her husband raped her. She said she had told him she didn\u2019t want sex but he said he didn\u2019t care and went ahead with it.<\/p>\n

In her evidence the oldest daughter of the accused said the family home had \u201can atmosphere of violence and threats\u201d and it felt like living in a military barracks. <\/p>\n

She described an incident in which her father allegedly ripped the earrings out of her ears when she was 10-years-old after she had been misbehaving.<\/p>\n

She said she decided to go to therapy with Jigsaw in June 2024 and that the first session \u201chighlighted something and then Tusla<\/a> was involved\u201d. She said her therapist suggested keeping a journal, and she did this.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnything that had happened, that I had brushed off, I started to write about,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Under cross-examination from James McGowan SC, defending, she said she travelled with her mother and her grandmother to make a statement of complaint together.<\/p>\n

Asked if, before making her statement, did her mother ask to see the journal, the witness said no. She said she didn\u2019t show her mother her journal and said she was certain about both these things.<\/p>\n

McGowan asked her about text messages between her and her mother from November 2024 in which her mother wrote: \u201cI want to look over them\u201d, and she replied: \u201cIt\u2019s all stuff that happened to me. Why would you need to talk about it?\u201d<\/p>\n

In the next text message, her mother wrote: \u201cJust in case it\u2019s something I remember?\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked what that was in reference to, the witness told counsel: \u201cThat was about my journal\u201d. McGowan asked her again if she would have shown her mother the journal, and the witness replied: \u201cIf she asked me, I probably did.\u201d<\/p>\n

She told McGowan she used the journal to collect her thoughts and help \u201cwork through\u201d them. She told the jury that \u201clike most teenage girls\u201d she did keep diaries over the years, but said: \u201cNone of them would have contained what the journal did.\u201d<\/p>\n

She told the jury she entitled her journal: \u201cThe story of my life \u2013 trauma edition\u201d because \u201cthe contents of it are so heavy\u201d and \u201cit was something to make it feel a little less\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said her younger sister, who is the second alleged victim of child cruelty, also kept a journal but that neither of them read each other\u2019s journals.<\/p>\n

She said she knew what her sister\u2019s journal looked like because she saw her using it when they were in her grandmother\u2019s house. She said they were both sitting at the kitchen table and journaling but not talking.<\/p>\n

She said her grandmother left the room and said: \u201cI don\u2019t even know when my grandmother found out I was in Jigsaw. I didn\u2019t speak about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she never told her grandmother anything about what was happening in the house and the first person she \u201copened up to\u201d was the Jigsaw therapist. She said after this she did \u201copen up to\u201d her grandmother.<\/p>\n

She said her case was referred to Tusla by Jigsaw. She said she subsequently decided not to proceed with her own case as she was \u201cstill living at home\u201d and she was aware that the file was closed.<\/p>\n

The trial continues before the jury of seven men and five women and Justice Sean Gillane. It is expected to run for two weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The eldest daughter of a garda charged with raping his wife and child cruelty has told the trial…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":71202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[45,42851,61,60,43,53],"class_list":["post-530247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-central-criminal-court","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-tusla"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=530247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}