DUBLIN – The brother of Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams was convicted Tuesday of raping his daughter in a case that highlighted how the Irish nationalist political party long discouraged the reporting of crimes within its own circles.
In an 11-1 vote, a Belfast jury found Liam Adams guilty on 10 counts of raping and sexually assaulting his daughter Aine from 1977 to 1983, when she was 4 to 9 years old. Adams, 58, was sent back to prison pending his sentencing later this month.
“I do not see this verdict as a victory, nor a celebration, as it has taken its toll and has caused hurt, heartache and anguish to all those involved,” Aine Adams said in a statement read by a police officer outside the Belfast court. “I can now begin my life at 40 and lay to rest the memory of the 5-year-old girl who was abused.”
During the trial she said the first time she recalled being raped by her father, a heavy drinker, was while her mother was in hospital giving birth to her younger brother in 1977.
Her father later raped her while her brother was asleep in the bed beside her.
Liam Adams denied ever molesting his daughter. His second wife and a daughter from that marriage testified in his defense.
But Aine Adams testified she had told her mother about the abuse in 1987, and together they went to police. She said they withdrew their statement after facing pressure from Sinn Fein not to cooperate with police, and because those police appeared more interested in getting intelligence information on Gerry Adams, then reputed to be the most senior Irish Republican Army commander in Belfast.
In his testimony, Gerry Adams said he had known the allegations against his brother since 1987 and had confronted him privately. He denied helping his brother get a job as a youth worker in west Belfast, Adams’ power base, in the ’90s.
Aine Adams returned to police to report the crimes again in 2007, the same year that Sinn Fein ended decades of boycotting the British forces of law and order in Northern Ireland. Accepting police authority opened the way for Sinn Fein to enter a power-sharing government for Northern Ireland in fulfillment of the territory’s Good Friday peace accord.
Aine Adams waived her legal right to anonymity in December 2009 on a Northern Ireland news program, during which she accused Sinn Fein of seeking to protect the party’s image by silencing her.
Liam Adams shortly thereafter fled Belfast, saying he could not receive a fair trial. He was extradited from the Republic of Ireland in 2011.