A man has claimed he and his twin brother were treated “like sexual pawns” by their stepfather who repeatedly sexually abused and beat them as well as making them perform sexual acts on each other.
A trial at Wicklow Circuit Criminal Court heard the treatment of the two eight-year-old boys by their stepfather, who is accused of 41 charges of indecent assault, child cruelty and animal cruelty at their home in Co Wicklow, was "worse than a dog".
The complainant also said he and his twin were forced by their stepfather to watch a pet dog being tied to a railway track and run over by a train as punishment for allowing the animal to escape off a rope.
Indecent assault
The 66-year-old man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, had pleaded not guilty to 12 charges of indecent assault against each of the two boys on dates between December 1st, 1988, and May 31st, 1989, at a location in Co Wicklow as well as seven charges of child cruelty on each of his alleged victims over the same time period.
The accused, who now has an address in the west of Ireland, is also charged with a single count of animal cruelty and two counts of indecent assault by making the two victims abuse each other.
The trial heard the accused had moved to Ireland from Britain in 1988 with his partner and her twin sons and the couple’s two other children.
One of the twins described how he and his brother lived in a premises with nothing but blankets and a box, while the rest of the family lived in an adjacent premises.
‘The normal’
The witness said the physical beatings with “a big brown belt with a big buckle” and “a truncheon-like stick” seemed to happen on a daily basis whenever they did something wrong.
The 40-year-old man said he was raped often by the accused while he and his brother were also made to perform sexual acts on each other.
“It seemed like the normal back then. We didn’t know otherwise,” he said. “We were just little kids. There was nothing we could do. We just did what he asked because of the fear of what would come after if we didn’t.”
The man said the abuse only stopped when he and his brother were taken into care after a teacher had noticed bruising on his brother’s body.
Patrick McGrath SC, for the accused, said his client denied sexually abusing the two boys or beating them with a belt or stick.
The trial continues.