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.

He said that he “could not exclude” either the accused or the woman as a DNA contributor to that profile.

A can of lager found in the toilet cubicle also carried the man’s DNA.

Dr Clifford told Úna Ní Raifeartaigh, prosecuting, that he received a number of items from the State Forensic Laboratory, including a blood sample from both the accused and the complainant, nail scrapings from both and swabs taken from her mouth and lips.

He was also provided with another swab that had been taken from liquid found in a lager can that had been found in the toilet cubicle.

He said he was given a number of mini-tape lifts taken from the outside of the lager can, the zips of the woman’s hoodie and outer jacket, her underwear and sanitary towel, a pair of man’s boxers, and two pairs of ladies’ underwear.

He also received tissue, which he was told had been taken from a cubicle at the crime scene and a small piece of cut out fabric taken from a pink slip, which he said was labelled as having contact blood staining.

He said DNA profiles were generated for both the accused and the woman’s blood samples and compared with profiles taken from the various exhibits. He said in making the comparison he used a DNA database created by the DNA profiling of 300 Irish people but added that he had made “statistical adjustments” in his analysis to allow for the fact that the accused was a foreign national.

He agreed with Tim O’Leary, defending, “contamination is an issue” when examining DNA but said all necessary procedures are followed to limit this and if it does occur there is a process to trace how it arose.

Detective Garda Damien Carroll said he compared the fingerprints on the can to fingerprints taken from the accused earlier while he was at the Garda station.

He said he was “satisfied” that two of the three marks on the can had been created by the right middle finger and right forefinger of the accused.

Det Gda Carroll agreed with Ronan Munro, defending, he had been reliant on the photographs of the fingerprints and the fingerprints on the garda form.

He accepted that fingerprint science does not tell us when and where the marks were deposited on the can.

The trial continues.