Thursday, February 09, 2012
The man on trial for raping a 12-year-old girl at a funfair more than 20 years ago said yesterday that it never happened and that he was a happily married man.
"It is totally untrue, I never touched the girl. I was happily married. I was only a couple of months married (at the time). I am still with my wife today," the 49-year-old testified on the second day of his trial at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork yesterday.
He told his senior counsel, Tom Creed, that he had attended several social occasions also attended by the complainant over the years since the alleged incident and that she never made any such claim over the years. He said they never even had an argument.
The complainant said on Tuesday that the defendant raped her in a funfair caravan and told her afterwards: "It was only for a bit of a laugh, a bit of a joke."
Evidence was given of two memos of interview which gardaí had with the defendant after the complaint was made in 2010.
The defendant said the allegations were not true. As for it occurring at 11am on a morning when the defendant was alone, he said that would not have happened. He said that he would only have been in the caravan if he was sleeping and that if he was awake he wouldhave been out and about.
He testified yesterday that he was not at the particular funfair in 1989 when the complainant believed the rape occurred.
The defendant’s wife said she spoke to the complainant when the rape claim was made and said to her: "If I thought for one minute he did that to you I would go into the river." She said she never believed the claim and never told the complainant anything other than that.
A teenage girl related to the accused testified that the defendant had never behaved in any inappropriate way towards her and in that sense was like her father. A number of other witnesses gave similar evidence in terms of there being no difficulties with his behaviour towards their daughters.
The case continues today.
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