{"id":45317,"date":"2025-09-05T13:29:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T13:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/45317\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T13:29:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T13:29:07","slug":"father-and-daughter-to-stand-trial-over-alleged-sexual-abuse-of-young-family-member-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/45317\/","title":{"rendered":"Father and daughter to stand trial over alleged sexual abuse of young family member \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">A father and daughter from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/belfast\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/belfast\">Belfast <\/a>are to stand trial for allegedly subjecting another child member of their family to a campaign of sexual abuse, a judge ordered today.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">The man and woman, aged in their 70s and 50s respectively, are accused of molesting the boy over a four-year period.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Prosecutors also claim the pair were involved in an incestuous relationship as part of their offending.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Neither defendant can be named to protect the alleged victim\u2019s identity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">They now face more than 60 charges following an investigation that took three years to complete.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Police examined up to 100 electronic devices, with computer hard drives, laptops and mobile phones all searched for any images or material related to the case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The two defendants, who are currently in custody, appeared remotely at Belfast Magistrates\u2019 Court for a long-delayed preliminary inquiry hearing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The charges include multiple counts of gross indecency with a child, indecent assault, inciting a child family member into sexual activity and aiding and abetting the abuse.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Both defendants are also jointly accused of incest because of their relationship as father and daughter.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Most of the alleged offences were committed over a period between 2006 and 2009.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The man is further charged with possessing indecent photographs of a child and extreme pornography at around the time of his arrest in 2022.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">During the hearing the two accused confirmed they understood the allegations against them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Defence lawyers accepted that a prima facie case has been established by the prosecution.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">When asked if he wanted to say anything in response to the charges, the man replied: \u201cNo thank you, other than I am guilty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">With no further details disclosed, both defendants declined to provide evidence or call witnesses at this stage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">District Judge George Conner backed submissions that the father and daughter each have a case to answer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall b-it-article-body__text--left\">Judge Conner confirmed senior counsel would be appointed to represent them due to the seriousness of the charges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A father and daughter from Belfast are to stand trial for allegedly subjecting another child member of their&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45318,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[663,9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-45317","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-belfast","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-top-stories","20":"tag-topstories","21":"tag-world","22":"tag-world-news","23":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45317"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45317\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}