EUROVISION winner and former Irish Presidential candidate Dana Rosemary Scallon covered up her brother’s alleged sexual abuse of two under-age girls for decades, a court has been told.
As closing statements were delivered at the London trial of John Brown, 60, a prosecution lawyer claimed the defendant and Ms Scallon both lied to the jury.
Claire Howell said the pair produced a “slick presentation” during the three-week trial to cover up Mr Brown’s alleged abuse of schoolgirls.
Mr Brown, from Bracknell, in Berkshire, is accused of five counts of indecent assault, two against a child under the age of 13 and three against a child under the age of 16 in England and the North of Ireland on various dates in the 1970s. He denies all the charges.
The judge was due to begin his summary of the case today (Wednesday), with the jury then being sent away to begin their deliberations.
In her closing speech yesterday, Ms Howell told Harrow Crown Court that the defendant and Ms Scallon, 62, had agreed exact dates and details to mask a history of abuse.
"This defendant says that the complainants are lying, he says that this is a wicked conspiracy involving both women," she said.
"He says that all the witnesses who have given evidence for the prosecution are part of an evil conspiracy to accuse him of abuse that he did not commit.
"The prosecution say that the people who have agreed to lie to you in this case are the defence witnesses.
"It's no sophisticated conspiracy, it's a cover-up from many years ago, at a time when you might think that cover-ups of this sort did happen for various reasons."
But defence lawyer Martyn Bowyer said the case presented against Mr Brown had at times resembled “an episode of Father Ted”.
He said the claims had been fabricated by the alleged victims and their families following bitter disputes over money and shared business interests.
Emphasising that the victims first raised their abuse claims in the US in 2008, but waited until 2011 to make a complaint to British Police, Mr Bowyer linked the allegations to Ms Scallon’s bid to become the President of Ireland.
“It is 2011, Dana revives her political career and she is a visible and easy-to-hit target,” he said.
London-born Ms Scallon, who shot to fame by winning the 1970 Eurovision Song Contest with All Kinds of Everything, twice stood as an independent candidate in Ireland’s presidential elections.
Her second bid, in 2011, saw her come in sixth place, taking just 2.9 per cent of the vote .
Mr Bowyer also claimed that while prosecution witnesses “wriggled like maggots on a hook” when giving evidence, Mr Brown had been composed throughout the proceedings.
“But Mr Brown doesn’t need to wriggle,” he added.
“He hasn’t wriggled from the moment he was first questioned by police to when he walked back from the witness stand.”
Ms Howell said the alleged victims had found it very hard for them to come clean about what they say happened to them “for obvious reasons”.
