Garda station alleged rape evidence 'unreliable'

The jury in the trial of a sergeant accused of raping a woman in a Co Donegal garda station has been told he must be acquitted because the prosecution evidence is unreliable.

Defence counsel, Mr Michael O’Higgins SC (with Mr Peter Nolan BL) told the jury in his closing address at the Central Criminal Court there were "seismic shifts" in the accounts of the alleged rape and in her evidence in court by the complainant.

Mr O’Higgins noted that she originally claimed she had resisted alleged kissing by the accused but after several days of evidence she agreed she had partaken in ‘French’ kissing with him in the station.

Counsel asked the jury to consider why she had "secreted" the clothes she wore in the incident with the accused in a bag she was to bring back to her work place. He said she gave different accounts of why she did this and the jury had to consider that.

Mr O’Higgins recalled also that the complainant walked from the station with the accused after the alleged rape and gave evidence that he directed her to his son’s bedroom.

"What rapist is going to bring the woman he raped into the bosom of his family home afterwards?

"What rapist is then going to direct the woman he raped to his son’s bedroom when the first question is going to be what the hell is going on here?"

Mr O’Higgins also noted to the jury that a woman whom the complainant contacted about the morning after pill said in court she hadn’t discussed her evidence with anyone but this was contradicted by the complainant’s sister.

It was revealed, he said, that witnesses had exchanged their statements as well as discussed their evidence while driving in the same car. It was that woman, he claimed, who was pivotal in the filing of the rape charge as the complainant had not said anything initially about rape.

Mr O’Higgins said the authorities had set the full force of the law on the accused to such an extent that contradictions in the complainant’s statements were not properly investigated. She was allowed shape her evidence to suit the forensic evidence in the case.

Counsel recalled that the defence had produced photographs to show that the accused didn’t have hairy legs as claimed by the complainant and said that while being interviewed the accused had dropped his trousers to show investigating gardaí that that was so.

Despite this, he said, the prosecution attempted to question the validity of the defence photographs.

The 55-year-old accused denies raping and sexually assaulting the now 25-year-old woman in their local garda station on June 21 2000. It was day 11 of the trial, which is expected to end this week.

The hearing continues before Mr Justice Henry Abbott and the jury of six men and six women.