Woman who falsely accused man of sexual assault lied again under oath, judge hears
A woman who has already spent months behind bars for falsely accusing a man of sexual assault lied again under oath in court on Monday in a claim for damages for personal injury, a judge was told in the Circuit Civil Court.
Throwing out riding instructor Denise Cribbin's €60,000 claim for injuries she allegedly suffered in a rear-ending traffic accident, Judge Terence O'Sullivan told her she just could not be trusted to tell the truth.
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Defence barrister Shane English told Cribbin she had persistently lied under oath about a minimal impact accident on the M50 in 2018 and had failed to tell the judge about a previous accident in 2016 after which she had falsely accused a man, who had claimed damages against her, of causing the accident by sexually assaulting her. Cribbin spent six months of a 12-month sentence in prison.
'Her evidence has been absolutely filleted by Mr English in the course of his cross-examination and is not reliable,' Judge O'Sullivan said when dismissing her case and awarding costs against her in relation to the 2018 collision.
Cribbin was described as the manager of a leisure horse riding business at The Paddocks, Ballyedmonduff Road, Woodside, Sandyford, Dublin 18 and of Stepaside, Co Wicklow.
In March 2022 Cribbin, now aged 48, was jailed for a year by the Court of Appeal after the Director of Public Prosecutions had successfully claimed an earlier two-year wholly suspended sentence following her admission of having made a false sexual assault allegation against a passenger in her car was too light.
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At the time, Mr Justice George Birmingham described how the offence had arisen out of events surrounding a single-car crash in July 2016 in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow. Both Cribben and the injured party had been occupants of the car, which belonged to her and which she had been driving.
She had claimed in a statement to gardaí that the injured party, who successfully sued her for €35,000 damages, had caused the accident by sexually assaulting her in her car, an allegation gardaí later found to be false and to which Cribbin pleaded guilty when charged.
In Monday's case, Cribbin had sued motorist Sharon McConnell, of Old Connell Weir, Co Kildare, and her insurers Allianz for €60,000 damages arising out of what was described as a minimal impact between their cars in traffic on the M50.
Cribbin claimed she had injured her left knee in the accident and had chipped two of her teeth when her face had struck the steering wheel.
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Mr English, who appeared with Patrick Brady of Newman Solicitors, told Cribbin she had lied, and lied and lied to the court about the accident and had failed to produce any evidence of treatments for her alleged injuries.
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Judge O'Sullivan said Ms Cribbin was not trustworthy and had not come before the court with a trustworthy reputation.
'I do not find it credible that the impact was such as to smash her face into the steering wheel and chip two of her teeth,' the judge said. 'Mr English rightly has given out that there is not a shred of medical evidence that she damaged her teeth.'
He said there had been no evidence of damage to either car, and he was very unhappy with the case. The plaintiff had come before the court, having failed to inform the defendant of her criminal prosecution.
'I find her as someone who just cannot be trusted in terms of credibility,' Judge O'Sullivan said.
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