‘Satanic sex’ trial: daughter 14 when accused moved into victims’ home

This story contains graphic depictions of sexual abuse which some may find disturbing

The victims’ cross-examination in the ‘satanic sex’ trial against a man who overpowered a traumatised family, continued on Tuesday afternoon.

Defence counsel Mario Mifsud confronted the witness and victim, the mother of two daughters whom the accused, a man, overpowered with his influence, over internet searches she had made in the previous years, such as ‘how to sell a haunted house’; as well as for having viewed horror flick ‘The Nun’ at the cinema.

Mifsud said the victim made use of a fortune-teller’s service, who styled himself as ‘Dimecus’, allegedly making it known that he was a satanic priest. “This Dimecus, did he ever tell you to watch porn?” asked the lawyer. He hadn’t, replied the witness. “Did you ever have sex with him?” – “Yes, once, at his house. It was a fling,” she said.

READ ALSO: Manipulator who used ‘demon voice’ wreaked havoc over mentally ill woman’s life

The cross-examination then moved on to the woman’s conversations with the Catholic priest during a confession, who told her not to use the occult in her alleged bid to make contact with her dead sister. She had told the priest she was convinced that a spirit was haunting her house.

Mifsud also mentioned that the witness was convinced about a ghostly apparition in the stairwell. “Yes. It was a nun. Like a silhouette. With a veil and a cross in her hand,” she told the court.

She confirmed that her daughter had taken a less-than-lethal dose of pills in a suicide attempt in a bid to coerce her to recant on her account of the accused’s sexual manipulation in her home. “Inspector Hayman had interrogated me at Mount Carmel hospital and I gave him a truthful account. Then I spoke to [younger daughter] and she spoke to the accused, telling me to say that it wasn’t him and so I called him up. He told me, ‘no, the broom wasn’t me. It was [the elder daughter] who grabbed it. Call up the inspector and tell him this.’”

The woman then relayed what she told the inspector to her daughters, her husband, as well as to her lover, a man she had ostensibly met at Mount Carmel Hospital.

Accused’s ex-girlfriend, victim’s youngest daughter testifies

The accused was introduced to the victims’ family home when he started dating the younger, 14-year-old daughter in May 2018, before breaking up in 2019. He moved into the house in June 2018.

The accused showed no emotion as his ex-girlfriend testified about the abuse of her mother and sister, frequently breaking down during the course of her lengthy testimony.

She said that after taking the family to the cinema to watch horror movie ‘The Nun’, the accused started making voices at home in a bid to scare them, as well as dressing up in a sheet to pretend he was a ghost, walking up and down the corridors.

The accused used his ‘demonic voice’ to startle the easily influenced family. On one occasion, when her elder sister paid the family a visit to see the dogs, a voice came through in the house ordering the mother not to smoke. The elder sister recognised the accused’s voice, but it seems the family was besieged by credulity. “The voice was his. It was audibly him. It was him,” said the witness, her voice quavering.

The accused used the ruse to order the elder sister to sleep at the family home, the night of which he is alleged to have instructed her to rape her own mother with a broom handle, which she refused. He then proceeded to do it himself, claiming he had been “ordered to do it by the spirit.”

After the ordeal was over, they went downstairs and drank whisky. “My mother, sister and then I, went upstairs. My sister had puked all over herself and he told me to wash her, so I did.”

The accused is alleged to have ordered the sisters to shower together; as well as conjured up other scenes of panic such as a fire in the shape of a cross, burning on the floor.

The younger daughter said the accused used a whip to make his dogs more aggressive, and sometimes used it on both her and her mother, “claiming he was suffering because of us”, allegedly under the influence of the ‘spirit’.

The victim said she was unable to withstand the aggressive sexual advances of the accused, saying she had to be available anytime he demanded sex. She was just 14 – a child.

Family troubles

The victim, in giving a description of her family affairs under cross-examination, said that her mother had previously used a Ouija board; and that her sister had at one point converted to Islam after leaving the family home in 2017, moving to Ireland to marry a man, Omar, before moving back after the marriage broke down.

She also said her mother dated other men, despite being married: “Every week she would meet a man. My sister and myself would end up alone in a stranger’s house sitting on the sofa while she had sex with them upstairs.”

She said she had suffered ostracisation at school after once catching her mother have sex with the father of a schoolfriend, at a barbecue. Her mother had to be medicated, and had suffered many overdoses on prescription pills.

‘Demonic voice’ ordered victim to punch her mother

The daughter said the accused used his ‘demonic voice’ to force her into punching her own mother; the alleged supernatural acts ceased when the accused would be outdoors, training with a football team. “When he returned it would start again.”

Despite seeing him from a mirror’s reflection effecting the spooky voice, she was scared of calling him out. “I was 14. He controlled me. He brainwashed me to the extent that I wouldn’t even tell my mother what was happening... It is very easy to control me. I am very soft and weak and my mother is the same. If he tells her to do something, she isn’t going to question why. She was so controlled.”

She later said her mother contemplated suicide in December 2018, and had sought the help of a priest to bless the house, going from room to room sprinkling holy water.

But when the allegations against the accused finally reached the court of magistrates, she tried to cover up for her boyfriend on his instruction and also that of a cousin, she told the court. She only later recanted on her false evidence, where she admitted everything to Inspector Hayman at the police headquarters, where she was later charged with perjury. She is serving probation after pleading guilty to that charge.