A teenager has alleged she was told to pretend her older cousin was pop star Justin Bieber as the cousin carried out sexual acts on her when they were in bed together.
The 20-year-old accused, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to 11 counts of sexual assault and one count of section 4 rape of the girl at various Dublin addresses on dates between July 2017 and July 2019.
The girl was aged between 10 and 11 at the time of the alleged offending, while the accused was aged between 12 and 14. The court has heard they are first cousins who, at the time of the alleged offences, had occasional sleepovers in each other’s homes or with relatives.
The jury has been told that the alleged abuse started before the accused turned 12, when she is alleged to have been watching pornography on her tablet before asking her younger cousin to carry out some sexual acts. There are no charges pertaining to these allegations as the accused had not yet reached the age of criminal responsibility.
A video recording of the complainant’s specialist garda interview, which took place in February 2023 when she was 15, continued to be played in court on Tuesday.
The girl described a number of occasions when she was having a sleepover with her cousin when she said they played a game that was initially called “mammies and babies” but which later became known as the “Justin Bieber game”.
The girl said her cousin told her she (the accused) would pretend to be Bieber as the younger girl liked the pop star at the time. The girl said the accused made her carry out sexual acts and carried out sexual acts on her when they were in bed together, often after watching pornographic videos.
The girl told gardaí she did not like it and that she told her cousin as much, but the accused said she “didn’t care”.
She outlined two further sleepovers where she alleged the accused slapped her in the face because she wanted the game to “stop”.
She said on one occasion while staying in her house, the accused figured out code on the girl’s tablet in order to bypass the kids section and then looked up pornography. The girl said her mother later saw there was pornography on the tablet’s search history.
She said the accused would tell her not to tell anyone and that what was happening was only a game. “She said there was no point telling anyone because no one would believe me.”
The girl said the abuse stopped when the accused tried to kiss her one day while in the girl’s bedroom and she pushed her away. She said the accused never talked to her about what happened and would not look at her when they encountered each other after that.
She said she eventually told her mother about the alleged abuse while she was stressed trying to study for exams. She said her mother had previously found notes in her bedroom written by her cousin saying she wanted to have sex with her.
She said she initially told her mother neither she nor her cousin knew what sex was but, on the night in question, she started the conversation by asking her mother if she remembered the notes she had found.
“I told her my cousin had been doing things to me that I didn’t like and made me do things to her,” she said.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Kerida Naidoo and a jury.
