{"id":532061,"date":"2026-07-04T01:58:18","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T01:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/532061\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T01:58:18","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T01:58:18","slug":"daughter-of-garda-charged-with-child-cruelty-tells-of-begging-to-be-let-inside-to-go-to-bathroom-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/532061\/","title":{"rendered":"Daughter of garda charged with child cruelty tells of begging to be let inside to go to bathroom \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A daughter of a garda<\/a> charged with raping his wife and child cruelty has told his Central Criminal Court<\/a> trial that she grew up knowing she would be hit or told off if she did not eat her dinner as a young child.<\/p>\n

The 48-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to one count of child cruelty of his now 17-year-old daughter on dates between 2015 and 2024.<\/p>\n

He has also pleaded not guilty to two counts of raping his wife on dates in 2009 and 2021.<\/p>\n

The man further pleaded not guilty to two counts of child cruelty of his now 24-year-old daughter on unknown dates between 2007 and 2020. He also denies a charge of assault causing harm to this daughter on an unknown date in late 2021 to early 2022, after she had turned 18.<\/p>\n

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

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

Jurors were on Friday shown a video of the then 15-year-old girl\u2019s interview with garda\u00ed, recorded in the winter of 2024.<\/p>\n

The girl described an incident when she was about seven and her older brother did not want to eat his dinner. Her father put a stick from a tree on the table and told her and her brother to finish their food by a certain time or they would be in trouble. She said she could not remember if she was hit, but she thought her brother \u201cmost likely\u201d was.<\/p>\n

She said there were similar incidents involving a stick, a wooden spoon or a cooking utensil when she was between six and 10. She said: \u201cWe grew up knowing if we didn\u2019t eat our dinner, we were going to get hit\u201d or given out to.<\/p>\n

She said when she was around nine, she was closing a door and a younger sister\u2019s hand got caught accidentally. Her father came in, put her hand in the door telling her, \u201cyou don\u2019t like how that feels\u201d, before walking away.<\/p>\n

She said her hand hurt and she felt upset after. She said she told her father that it was accidental, but he did not listen to her. He did not speak to her for several days afterwards, she said.<\/p>\n

The girl said on one occasion when she did not want to do the hoovering, her father was \u201cgiving out\u201d, then threw a TV remote at her, hitting her on the shoulder. She said she felt scared afterwards.<\/p>\n

She said her mother was out shopping at the time, and after that she tried to go with her in case it happened again.<\/p>\n

Around September 2023, she did not want to brush her hair before school. Her father brushed her hair, then hit her on the head with the brush. She said she was crying and upset.<\/p>\n

She said after school, her father told her something along the lines of: \u201cYou know why I had to do it. You were a mess.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she was in the car with her father one time when he started \u201cranting\u201d about her mother, saying she did not care about them or treat him right. The girl said she felt surprised and confused, noting he made her \u201cpinky promise\u201d not to tell as he would get in trouble, but she told her older sister.<\/p>\n

The girl described another incident when she was eight or nine when he dragged her upstairs after she had an argument with her mother. She said he put her in her room and she was not allowed out for several hours, until supper time.<\/p>\n

She said her father expected her and her brother to stay outside all day during the summers when she was aged between six and 10 and would pass them food out of a window if they were hungry. She said she would have to \u201cbeg\u201d to be let inside to go to the bathroom.<\/p>\n

The girl said she was \u201ckind of chubby\u201d at 13 or 14 and when she started to lose weight, they started talking more, but all their conversations were about weight and fitness. She said her father started pushing her to lose more weight and she felt \u201cobligated\u201d so he would be happy.<\/p>\n

She said her father would show photos of her weight loss to his family and friends and while she was glad he was proud, she was uncomfortable about him telling people outside the family.<\/p>\n

Her father told her he was \u201cdisappointed\u201d she gained weight and would wake up at night worrying about it. She said he told her things would be harder for her in future if she \u201ccontinued going downhill\u201d and she needed to fix herself up.<\/p>\n

She said her father was \u201ciffy\u201d about weight, and talked to her about the weight of two of her siblings and an uncle.<\/p>\n

The girl also said her father wanted her to get more involved with sports, but she started to get more into reading in 2022. She said he ignored her if she brought a book and told her to stop reading.<\/p>\n

She said he often forgot to get her a birthday card and if he bought her a gift, it would be fitness-related, though it is not one of her main interests. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t know much about me as a person,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She said one time in 2021, when he was tickling her, he put his hands around her neck, strangling her. She said she freaked out and scratched him so he stopped.<\/p>\n

On another occasion in early 2024, she said she went upstairs with her mother as a younger sister was making loud noises. She saw her older sister trying to get their father off the younger sister. She said her younger sister later told her that their father had put his arms around her neck.<\/p>\n

During cross-examination, she accepted she went to Jigsaw for therapy in 2023 and 2024, and wrote a journal.<\/p>\n

She told John McGowan, defending, that she did not discuss the journal with her mother or grandmother. She said she spoke to her older sister about \u201csmall things\u201d she wrote after her Garda interview, but never saw her sister\u2019s journal.<\/p>\n

McGowan noted the girl wrote in the journal that her father \u201cslammed\u201d the door repeatedly, but did not tell this to garda\u00ed. She agreed she did not say that as she must have been nervous and that he did it twice.<\/p>\n

He also asked her about the incident in early 2024 involving her younger sister. She said she was listening to music downstairs using earphones, but could hear what was happening upstairs. She said she went upstairs with her mother, and her older sister intervened.<\/p>\n

She agreed with counsel that her father was apologetic afterwards and spoke to her younger sister, but not to her.<\/p>\n

The girl agreed her father was still living in the family home when she spoke to garda\u00ed, but moved out shortly afterwards. She said she still has contact with him. <\/p>\n

The trial continues before Judge Sean Gillane and the jury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A daughter of a garda charged with raping his wife and child cruelty has told his Central Criminal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173275,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[45,42851,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-532061","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-central-criminal-court","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532061","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=532061"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532061\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}