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A JURY hearing allegations that a married farmer raped a man multiple times in 2011 and 2019 retired this Thursday (May 8) to consider its verdict at the Central Criminal Court, sitting in Limerick City.
During the trial, the complainant told the jury that the alleged rapes felt like “barbed wire”.
The trial heard the accused accepted in Garda interviews that some sexual activity had occurred between the two men, but he denied raping the complainant on January 6, 2011, and April 8, 2019.
The allegations, which were presented in court by prosecuting senior counsel Fionnuala O’Sullivan, surfaced in April 2019 after the complainant made a disclosure to his GP after the second alleged rape.
Under cross examination by the accused’s barrister, senior counsel Mark Nicholas, the complainant agreed he remained in regular contact with the accused for eight years after the first alleged rape.
The complainant denied allegations that he asked the accused for money for sex and that he grabbed the accused’s “crotch” a number of times.
The complainant told the court the accused’s counter-claims were “lies”, telling the court: “I told him to stop, I didn’t like it.”
When asked by Mr Nicholas what he did while the accused was allegedly removing his trousers and underpants, the complainant replied: “I was just scared, I just froze.”
Mr Nicholas suggested the complainant had asked the accused for money for sex, that he had removed his own clothes.
He put it to the complainant that the accused “pretended to go along with it”.
The complainant told the court this was “bulls**t”.
The complainant also refuted suggestions by Mr Nicholas that he had a knife in his hand when he asked the accused for sex and that the accused “was afraid you’d harm yourself”.
Mr Nicholas said the accused denied allegedly telling the complainant that he loved him.
“He’s lying, he’s lying, he’s lying,” the complainant told Mr Nicholas.
When asked by Mr Nicolas if he felt “sore” during the alleged rapes, the complainant stated: “It was like barbed wire going up your… It was like hell, like something burning you.”
The complainant agreed with Mr Nicholas that he remained in regular contact with the accused over the years following the first alleged rape in 2011.
None of the parties involved in the proceedings can be identified for legal reasons.
