A child who was allegedly raped by his father and forced to "have sex" with his mother told a social worker that the allegations "weren't real", a trial has heard.
However, the now 12-year-old boy told the trial today that the abuse did happen and he said it didn't because he didn't want to come to court.
On Tuesday the boy alleged his father had raped him, sexually abused him with a hot poker and forced him to have sex with his mother in their Waterford home. The man is also alleged to have held a gun to the child's head.
His parents face a total of 82 charges of abuse between 2007 and 2011 in Waterford. The father and mother have pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to 16 counts each of sexual exploitation and one charge each of child cruelty. The mother has also denied 16 counts of sexual assault while the father denies 16 counts of anal rape and 16 counts of sexual assault with a poker.
Today the boy told Pauline Walley SC, prosecuting, it was difficult to remember the details of the abuse "because it happened quite a while ago and because you kind of want to box it all out and throw it away."
The child said he believed he was about eight years old when he was forced by his father to have sex with his mother, that it would happen once a week and it would last between 45 minutes and an hour.
He said his father would sometimes watch football on television in the same room while it happened before telling the boy "right, done, off to bed."
The boy was taken into care when he was eight and was placed with foster families. He is giving evidence via video-link from the UK where he is currently in residential care. He said he didn't want to say where exactly he was "for privacy reasons."
He agreed with Ms Walley that he had a conversation with his social worker last year when he talked about his worries that his father would find out where he was. The social worker assured him this would not happen. He said he then told the social worker the abuse did not happen
"I said it wasn't real, just to be able to get out of it so I didn't have to do it, but it is real," he said. Asked what "it" was, he replied "this court case."
He said he later spoke with a garda and they also discussed his worries about his father finding him. He said he told the garda that "it was real."
The trial continues with the boy's evidence tomorrow before Mr Justice Robert Eagar and a jury.
Conor Gallagher