It was a place were happy memories were supposed to be made, instead the home Sara and Jackie (not their real names) visited as children when they were growing up to see their Grandma was anything but.

Their memories were blinkered by wickedness when a visitor to the house allegedly abused the two of them, sometimes when other family members were in the house, unaware of what was going on.

While Sara was abused by this man, Jackie was separately abused by him and another friend of the family when he visited.

Both men were members of the Orange Order and spent a lot of time in the home before or after band practices and parades with their family members.

“There was no electricity, there was an oil lamp on the kitchen table which gave off the faintest light possible unless Granny lit the gas light which she didn’t do often,” said Jackie.

“There was a large range cooker and you put sticks in it, there was a boiler on the top of it to boil their hot water for their water bottles,” she said, depicting the layout of the house.

“Granda lay on a sofa, there was another sofa where my Granny was, and my mummy was there. I can still see a wee table here, a chair there, a door to the kitchen and then there was a large sofa here, and a staircase,” she said.

Jackie recalls having to lie between her father and one of the men [whose name she has provided].

“Someone would have thrown a coat over me or a blanket and when that happened the other man’s hand would have gone between my legs. I was very confused. My Dad didn’t know what was going on.

“There was a nursey rhyme where you jig the child up and down and all of a sudden you let the child fall between your legs. He would have sat you facing him, he widened his legs which left you very vulnerable, his hands went in and when he bounced you up and down and it hurt like hell,” she said.

Jackie explained how these men visited the home several times a week and claimed she was secretly abused “practically every week”.

She claims the other man brought her upstairs before abusing her by first removing her underwear. Yet again her family were unaware.

“He lay on top of me naked and went through the whole motions. He never spoke and I always remember the look he gave me before he went down the stairs. A look of sympathy, that I am sorry, disgust, but that I still want to do it.”

And it was a similar experience for Sara who recalls “if you got close to them at all, even if Granny and Granda were there they would abuse you by touching your private parts while in the middle of talking about an Orange parade or fellow Brethren,” she told this newspaper.

Both cases were dropped by the Public Prosecution Service but for Jackie it was all too much.

“The man in the PPS told me he believed every word I said but a defending barrister would rip me to shreds. I said ‘let me try, I want that one chance to face those two boys in court’.

“He said no, I went home and took an overdose,” she said.