Alleged rape victim 'told cousin of sexual encounters'

The first cousin of an alleged rape victim has said that as a 13-year-old she told her she was having sex with two men who were friends of her parents.

She said she did not believe her now 29-year-old cousin's stories at the time.

"I felt it was building castles in the air, a bravadao," she said in defence evidence at the Central Criminal Court trial of an Offaly farmer.

The accused's wife claimed in her evidence that the complainant left pornographic magazines for her husband in his car and said she would have known if he had sex with the complainant as she has claimed.

"My husband and I always had sex on a Saturday night," she said on day-five of his trial.

Her 54-year-old husband has pleaded not guilty to 44 charges alleging offences at two named places in Offaly on dates from 1990 to 1998.

He has denied 27 counts of rape: one in 1992; seven in 1993; ten in 1994; and three each in 1995 and 1996 and 1997-1998. He has also denied 17 counts of indecent and sexual assaults on dates from 1990 to 1995.

The woman's cousin told defence counsel, Mr Patrick Gageby SC (with Ms Sara Phelan BL), she would often meet with the complainant when they were teenagers and they would discuss boys.

She said the complainant told her she was regularly having sex with "one man" she said was a friend of her parents, either in his sitting room while his wife was in bed or in his car.

The witness said her cousin also claimed to be having sex with a local business man who was a friend of her fathers. She claimed that she had intercourse with this man in a hotel function room, while her parents were in another part of the building.

She told Mr Gageby that the complainant was "a capable, confident, intelligent teenager". She said she could not have been described as "naïve, vulnerable or a pushover".

Witness did not accept a suggestion from prosecuting counsel, Mr Niall Durnin SC (with Ms Dara Foynes BL), that she was "making these stories up as she went along in a bid to discredit her cousin and protect her uncle".

"No, I have nothing to gain by sitting here," she replied.

She accepted that she no longer talked to the complainant and said she was not too concerned about hearing these kind of stories from a young teenager because her cousin was "always telling different stories".

The accused's wife told Mr Gageby that she was visiting the complainant's family home one evening when the teenager approached them and said that she had left "a present" for her uncle in his car.

She said that on the way home she noticed there were two pornographic magazines under the passenger seat.

Asked by Mr Durnin, in cross-examination, did she not think "why on earth is this girl giving my husband pornographic magazines", she replied: "I was totally disgusted. It didn't cross my mind".

She said when she went home and saw "how explicit" the magazines were, her husband told her "to throw them in the fire before the children see them".

The woman said that neither she nor her husband ever had any cause to check on her daughter after they came home from a night out while the complainant was baby-sitting.

She agreed with Mr Gageby that she heard the allegation that her husband had raped and sexually assaulted his niece while the teenager was staying in the same room as their daughter before going back to bed with her.

She said this couldn't be true. "Would I not know if he had sex with somebody? If he had just got out of her bed? My husband and I always had sex on a Saturday night."

The accused's wife said she first heard about the criminal proceedings against her husband in December 2003 and first heard of the civil proceedings on Monday of this week.

The trial has reached it is closing stages before Mr Justice Peter Charleton and a jury of seven men and five women.