Jury retires in Mayo pub rape case
A Mayo man accused of sexually assaulting two children for up to a year in the pub where he worked denied the allegations during garda interview after one of the girls made a complaint nine years after the alleged offences.
The 39-year-old man, who can not be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty to 16 counts of sexual assault and 13 counts of oral rape against one girl; also 14 counts of sexual assault, 13 counts of oral rape and one count of anal rape against the second child on dates between June 1999 and September 2000.
The girls were between eight and 10 years old at the time of the alleged offences.
The jury have heard closing speeches from prosecution counsel, Ms Deirdre Murphy SC, and defence counsel, Mr Patrick Gageby SC (with Mr Eoin Garavan BL), and have been charged by Mr Justice Barry White.
They are expected to retire to consider their verdict on Monday.
The local sergeant in charge of the investigation earlier told Ms Murphy that the accused was arrested on February 17, 2009 and interviewed on four occasions.
During the first interview the accused man told gardaí he had never sexually abused children.
He said he knew the girls and remembered them coming in two or three times a week when they would use the toilets and watch TV.
He denied asking them if they knew anything about sex or showing them his penis. He denied asking the girls if they wanted to touch it or letting them in through a side door to a quiet area of the pub.
He denied sexually abusing one of the girls for up to a year saying: “She was a child I would not do it.”
He said he never touched the girl inappropriately.
During the second interview he denied that he had made the girls perform oral sex on him or that he had given money and alcohol to one of the girls.
He denied having anal sex with the second complainant and said the girl must have developed her detailed knowledge of the bar when he was not there.
In his third interview that day, he denied that he had ever put the children's hands on him or forced himself on them. He denied getting the girls to perform sex acts on him or putting his fingers near their private area.
In his fourth and final interview with gardaí that day he denied telling one of the girls that he had sex with his girlfriend in the morning time and saying that was the best time to do it.
The proprietor of the pub where the accused man worked at the time told Ms Murphy that he remembered the first complainant using the toilets on occasion and playing outside the pub. He said he had no specific memories of the second complainant in the pub as a child.
He said if he came across children in the pub he would have “chased them out”.
The trial continues before Mr Justice White and a jury of six men and six women.
