Woman’s DNA ‘under rape accused’s fingernails’

THE trial of a man accused of raping a woman in a public toilet in a Cork town has heard that her DNA was found under his fingernails and on a pink blood-stained slip taken from his home.

The 36-year-old foreign national has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to 12 counts including rape, oral rape, anal rape, threats to kill, assault causing harm, sexual assault and false imprisonment during the attack on the woman on the afternoon of March 9, 2010.

Dr Stephen Clifford, a DNA scientist, told the court that he examined a pair of blue ladies’ thongs, also from the accused’s apartment, and found it had a mixed DNA profile.