Sex attack trial witness 'shown photo before identity parade'

A witness has told a Central Criminal Court jury that gardaí showed him a photograph of a man two months before he made an identification at a formal parade in a Cork garda station.

Mr James Cummins (aged 22), who worked at Statoil service station on Leitrim Street in Cork city at the time of the alleged incident, was under cross-examination by Mr Blaise O’Carroll SC, defending, in the case of a man accused of sexually assaulting a French woman in Cork in 2000.

Mr Cummins earlier told Ms Deirdre Murphy SC (with Mr Tony Hunt BL), prosecuting, that the driver of a white minibus taxi entered the Statoil shop between 3am and 4am on September 7, 2000, and bought Red Bull and chewing gum.

Mr Cummins said he picked the man from an identity parade and made one statement to gardaí on November 28, 2000.

A 41-year-old has pleaded not guilty to four charges of aggravated sexual assault on the woman, assault with intent to rob her, hijacking a minibus taxi and arson of the vehicle

Mr Cummins agreed under cross-examination by Mr O’Carroll (with Mr Michael McGrath BL) that he had also made a statement in September 2000 but had no clear recollection of doing so as four years had passed. Neither statement mentioned a photograph.

The witness said: "I never lose a face." Mr O’Carroll suggested: "You have an air of certainty about you on one hand, but are uncertain on the other."

The alleged victim said earlier she was a UCC student on her way to the airport, when she hailed a white minibus outside her home believing it to be a taxi. She wanted to get into the front passenger seat but the driver directed her to get into the back.

He threatened her with a weapon and subjected her to a two-hour ordeal including a "humiliating and degrading" sexual assault, before letting her go.

The further hearing, before Mr Justice Daniel Herbert and a jury of six men and six women, has been adjourned due to legal argument.