Trial of former sports coach hears evidence from schoolfriends of woman he indecently assaulted

THE TRIAL OF a former sports coach who has pleaded guilty to five counts of indecent assault and faces dozens of charges, has heard evidence from schoolfriends of one of the complainants.

The man (70s), who cannot be named due to the nature of the charges, is accused of 78 indecent assaults and one attempted rape in a number of locations within the state on dates between 1971 and 1981.

The four complainants were aged between eight and 15 when the alleged offences occurred.

He has pleaded not guilty to 73 counts of indecently assaulting the four complainants on dates between 1971 and 1981, and one count of attempted rape in 1976.

He has pleaded guilty to five counts of indecently assaulting one of the complainants on a number of dates between May and September 1976. 

It is the state’s case that the abuse took the form of kissing, inappropriate touching, digital penetration, forced oral sex and, in relation to one complainant, attempted rape.

At the Central Criminal Court today, Patrick Gageby SC, for the accused, cross-examined the first complainant, who gave evidence in the trial on Tuesday.

He reminded her of the accused’s guilty pleas to five counts of indecently assaulting her, and said it is his case that “yes he did molest you, but only in his office”. The complainant disagreed with this.

He said the accused “fully accepts in his office, he molested you over at least a five-month period”.

“You say it was longer,” Gageby told the first complainant.

The complainant replied that it was longer than that. When asked how long, she said her memory was that he abused her when she was aged 13 and 14. “It could’ve been a year, but I can’t quantify it exactly.”

Gageby said the accused also maintains that the complainant never babysat for him in his home, and that he was never a “constant visitor” to her home, where it is alleged he assaulted her.

The complainant said the accused was “never a constant visitor, but he was there”, adding that she remembered him being there various times, including once to help her father wallpaper the home.

“I can picture him on a ladder doing the awkward bit,” she told the court.

Gageby referred to the alleged incident in her bedroom and asked how long the accused was in the room. She said: “Maybe five or ten minutes, I don’t know. It wasn’t hours anyway. It was still light so it was summer, but it was nighttime.”

In relation to the first complainant, the man has pleaded not guilty to 29 counts of indecent assault on dates between 1975 and 1977. The guilty pleas he entered are in relation to her.

School friends’ evidence

The trial also heard from two friends of the first complainant who went to secondary school with her.

The first friend told the court that there were very few girls in the school at the time and that the trio became “firm friends” in second year and had remained friends ever since.

Asked what type of education they had about the facts of life at that point, she laughed and said “none”. She said they had sex education in fifth and sixth year, but there was none at home. “We didn’t know anything.”

She told the court that after they started learning about biology in second year, they “would talk about things, trying to work out what we understood because we thought there must be more to it than that”.

She said she was not very familiar with the accused at the time but knew him as the first complainant’s sports coach.

She recalled that when they were aged around 13, the first complainant told her that she and the man had “gotten to know each other” and that when they were together, “he would kiss her using his tongue” and that she performed oral sex on him.

Asked what she understood that to mean, she said: “I understood that he put his penis in her mouth and that he had ejaculated.” She described how they wondered if the complainant could get pregnant if the sperm travelled down to her stomach.

‘We didn’t want to get her in trouble’

She said the alleged abuse “was ongoing” when the complainant told the friends about it and that they had “quite a number” of conversations about it over the course of around three months. “We would have talked about it quite a bit.”

She said the first complainant only told her and their other friend about the alleged abuse. “We didn’t want to get her in trouble,” she said.

When asked to elaborate, she said they knew the man was married and that they may have thought they “were in love” or that what had happened “was special, but we knew at the same time, she’d be in trouble”.

The second school friend told the court that the first complainant and the other friend were her “closest” friends.

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Asked if they spoke about relationships at the time, she said: “We really didn’t have relationships at that point in time. We were children.”

She said the only thing relating to a relationship that they spoke about was when the first complainant told them about her coach. She said she spoke about her sport a lot and initially spoke about her coach “quite fondly”, but that it then “turned”.

She recalled a particular day when the complainant told them that the accused had called her into his office and closed the blinds. She described the complainant telling them that the accused had “showed her how to kiss him and he got her to handle his penis”.

“Over the next couple of weeks, it emerged he got her to put his penis into her mouth,” she said.

She said the complainant only spoke to the two friends about this when they were walking in the grounds of their school “out of earshot” from others.

“It never occurred to me to talk to an adult or a teacher about it, and later on when I got married, I never told my husband about it.”

Under cross-examination, she told Patrick Gageby that she made a statement to gardaí about what the first complainant told her and that the alleged abuse had taken place in the man’s office.

She confirmed under cross-examination that the first complainant had recounted what allegedly happened in a very matter-of-fact way.

Gageby asked whether, being children at the time, they thought she was consenting. The friend said the complainant thought the accused “really liked her”.

“It was something that happened that she didn’t object to initially,” she said.

‘Good Catholic Ireland’

This afternoon, the second complainant gave evidence to the court via videolink from abroad. The man has denied two counts of indecently assaulting this woman on dates between 1975 and 1977.

She told the court she remembered one occasion when she was babysitting for the accused in his home when she was around 11 years old. She described being in a bed when she saw an adult’s silhouette coming into the room and that she recognised the accused by his voice.

She alleged that the accused’s hands went under the bedclothes and touched her torso, her breasts and moved down towards her legs. She could not remember how long this went on for, but said the incident had stuck in her mind because “when you’re so ashamed, shame sticks in your brain”.

“I don’t remember if I babysat on another occasion, but that evening, that I won’t forget.”

She told the court that the second alleged incident took place when she was either 13 or 14 years old. She said the accused followed her into a changing room and sat down next to her. She alleged he put his hand under her clothing and touched her breasts, stomach, hip and the upper part of her leg.

Asked how long it went on for, she said it was “more short than long”.

“An incident like that, you’re in panic. If you tell me it was 30 seconds, I’ll believe you. If you tell me it was three minutes, I’ll believe you. If you tell me it was ten, I won’t.”

She described feeling “so ashamed of my behaviour” and asking herself “how dare I” after the alleged incident, referring to “good Catholic Ireland” and to the fact that the accused was married at the time.

She said she left feeling “ashamed” and “totally overwhelmed” and that she did not continue taking part in the sport after that incident.

‘I was inappropriately touched’

During cross-examination, Patrick Gageby SC, for the accused, put it to the second complainant that the accused has no memory of her ever babysitting in his house. He asked how many occasions she claims she babysat for him. She said she could only remember the incident in question.

Asked if there was “tickling involved” during that alleged incident, she said: “The answer is I think so.”

When asked if it caused her to giggle, she said it might have. “But if it was giggling, it wasn’t giggling in joy, it was in nervousness.”

“Because it was so strange and unknown and inappropriate, maybe.”

Gageby suggested to her that “nothing improper” occurred between her and the accused during the first alleged incident “and nor did anything improper occur when you were 14”.

“I happen to be the person who was there, so I’m happy with my own opinion that I was inappropriately touched,” the complainant said.

The accused has pleaded not guilty to 41 counts of indecently assaulting a third complainant and one count of attempted rape on dates between 1971 and 1975.

He has pleaded not guilty to one count of indecently assaulting a fourth complainant on a date between 1980 and 1981.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Micheál O’Higgins and a jury of six men and six women on Thursday.

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