Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams confronted his younger brother Liam about allegations that he had raped his own daughter, Belfast Crown Court heard this week.
The court heard that Aine Dahlstrom, accompanied by her mother and her uncle Gerry (who was at the time a Westminster MP) put the claims to her father Liam Adams in 1987 in Buncrana, County Donegal where he was living with his new family. He reportedly denied any wrong-doing.
Liam Adams, 58, of Bearnagh Drive in west Belfast denies ten counts of rape, indecent assault and gross indecency against his daughter from the age of four until she was nine. The alleged abuse occurred between 1977 and 1983.
The jury was told Liam Adams allegedly raped and indecently assaulted his daughter 'as often as he could manage.'
In a recorded interview with police that was played to the court, Dahlstrom said her father had abused her when she was four whilst her mother was in hospital giving birth to her baby brother Conor.
According to the Irish Independent, the jury heard that the abuse happened in three homes in which the family lived in west Belfast and later in her father's north Belfast flat.
Dahlstrom, 40, said she remembered her father telling her 'that one day we would run away to Kerry together but not to tell anybody.'
In her evidence, she claimed Liam Adams had forced her to perform oral sex: 'He would push you down to make sure you did what he wanted you to.'
Dahlstrom reportedly told her mother Sarah about the alleged abuse at Christmas 1986. In early 1987, Dahlstrom reported the alleged abuse to the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC).
She told the court that she later retracted her statement because it became clear to her family that the police were more interested in learning information about her uncle Gerry Adams than the abuse she had suffered.
Defense barrister Eilis McDermott asked why Dahlstrom told police in 1987 that the abuse had begun in 1979, when she later said it had begun two years earlier in 1977?
Dahlstrom told the court she had been only 13 when she reported the alleged abuse, and because she was immature she had tried to protect her mother by withholding details of some alleged incidents. The trial continues.
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