Former Ulster and Irish rugby international David Tweed, who died in a motorcycle accident recently has been fingered by his daughters for sexual abuse.
In a chat with the Sunday World, Victoria and Catherine Alexandra Tweed detailed how their late hardline unionist father both sexually and physically assaulted them from when they were as young as six years old.
The second-youngest of Tweed’s four children, Victoria said “he wasn’t a man. He was a monster and it’s time everyone knew”.
“To think he attended my birth and held me in his arms knowing that at some stage in the future he was going to abuse me, is sickening,” the 26-year-old continued.
“The person who was supposed to be my protector was coming into my bedroom every night to abuse me.
“It was when I was having my own baby I began to get flashbacks about what happened.
“I went to the police and made a statement, but I didn’t feel strong enough to go through a court case.
“I grew up and moved away and that helped me. But I always knew I wanted to speak out for the sake of others.”
Though she expressed happiness and relief at his death, the mum-of-two said she also felt anger as she can now never get the chance to ask Davy Tweed why he had treated her the way he did.
She said “When he was in prison, I applied to visit him. I wanted to question him”.
“But he turned down my request.”
It would be recalled that in 2012, Davy Tweed was convicted on child sex abuse charges — quashed in 2016 after he served four years of an eight-year sentence.
In a recent chat with newsmen, Tweed’s victim Amanda Brown, whose evidence resulted in his sentencing nine years ago, branded Tweed as “a bully and a paedophile”.
Catherine Alexandra Tweed recalled that “When we received the news of my father’s case being quashed, an instant dread came over me”.
“It was over the tiniest legal loophole not because he was innocent.
“Then to be told the victims of the case would have to go through it again, but he wouldn’t serve any more time. This ‘gentleman’ monster would be walking the same streets as me again. I felt the legal system failed us as victims.
“I never got my day in court with my father. I believe justice could never be served because of who he was, This ‘great’ man… the day my daddy died, my abuser died.”
It was gathered that the 61-year-old was buried at Dunley Presbyterian Graveyard and his daughters did not attend the funeral.
