Accused says he was riding motorbike at time of attack

An 18 year-old Cork man on trial for the rape and murder of a woman in 2000 told gardai that he was in the park "spinning around" on his motorbike at the time the attack took place.

Garda Liam Woods told a jury at the Central Criminal Court today that he and Garda John Ford first interviewed the accused during door-to-door inquiries after the death of Ms Rachel Kiely (22).

Ms Kiely was found strangled and raped in the Regional Park, Ballincollig, Co Cork after going missing when out walking her dogs.

The accused, who cannot be named for legal reasons, denies the murder and rape of Ms Kiely in the park on October 26, 2000.

Responding to a questionnaire the accused told gardai that he knew the deceased. When asked when and where he had last seen her alive, he replied, "definitely around two or three weeks ago outside the L&N supermarket".

The accused made two statements, the second of which contradicted certain details contained in the first.

In the first statement the accused told gardai that on the morning of the killing he had slept in for work and that he rang the secretary at his workplace at around 11.20am.

"I rang the factory where I work and spoke to Margaret looking for a lift, she put me through to the van driver and he said he was in the area and would pick me up," he told gardai.

"He picked me up at around ten to twelve and I got to work around 12 midday".

The accused said that after work he drove home through the Regional Park with two friends who were on another motorbike.

"I got home for 5 o'clock...I had something to eat and went out around 5.20 or 5.30," he said.

He said he left home alone and went to the park, where he walked along a path talking to a neighbour before retrieving his motorbike from a spot where he kept it hidden. The court has already heard that this motorbike was not taxed or insured and had no registration plates.

"I drove it down to the rugby pitch at around 5.50, I travelled on the gravel route... I was spinning up and down in the rugby field for around an hour, I was on my own," he told gardai. The prosecution alleges that Ms Kiely was attacked between 5.30pm and 6.30pm.

He told the enquiring gardai that he had fallen off his bike a few times and grazed the side of his ankle. Gda Woods observed a horizontal cut on the side of the accused's face and also made a sketching of "short scratches" that he noticed on both of his wrists.

In cross-examination he told Mr Blaise O'Carroll SC for the defence that he was "attaching no particular credence at that time" to these observations.

Mr Vincent Jeffers, an elderly man who was out walking his dog in Regional Park at the time of Ms Kiely's disappearance, told the court that he didn't see or hear any motorbikes in the park during his walk.

"You would remember a motorbike down there, there's no traffic...a motorbike is fairly noisy," he said.

In a second statement made at Ballincollig Garda Station on November 2 the accused told Det Gda Ger O'Callaghan that he had slept in for work, but that he drove himself to work on his motorbike at around 11am.

He again said that he was driving his motorbike from 5.20 to 6.20 in the park before meeting

back up with his friends.

"Between 5.15 and when I got home the only person I saw was an old man walking a dog, I was spinning around the rugby pitch and each time I passed the old building I would have been on my bike," he told Gda O'Callaghan.

Ms Margaret O'Callaghan gave evidence that the accused had not rang his workplace that morning as he first indicated to gardai.

When asked by Mr Patrick J McCarthy, prosecuting, if she had asked a van driver to pick him

up she said, "No, that didn't happen either, Jonathan wasn't working that day".

Mr Jonathan Atkinson, the company van driver confirmed that this was the case and said he was in England on holidays on the day in question.

The trial continues tomorrow before Mr Justice Paul Butler and a jury.