Alleged rape victim asked prison warders for priest, court hears
A man who claims he was orally raped at blade-point in St Patrick's Institution asked prison warders to bring him a priest after they found him hiding in a toilet cubicle.
Prison officers Keith Ryan and Pat O'Brien told a Central Criminal Court jury they found the alleged victim in a distressed state sitting on the toilet and crying. He didn't reply when they asked him what was wrong and only asked for a priest.
They told him the priest would be in the prison the next morning and placed the then teenage Wexford man in a padded cell in the basement separation unit for his own safety.
The witnesses agreed with defence counsel Mr George Birmingham SC (with Ms Caroline Biggs BL), that the complainant had made no allegation against the accused at that time.
They also agreed there had been suicide and attempted suicide problems in prisons and they called a medical orderly when they found the complainant who had gone missing from his cell.
It is day two of the trial of a now 20-year-old Dubliner who has pleaded not guilty to oral rape and to aggravated sexual assault on October 2, 1999 at St Patrick's Institution on the North Circular Road, Dublin.
Earlier, the now 20-year-old Wexford man who alleges he was orally raped by the accused agreed with Mr Birmingham that it would be difficult for a prisoner to have brandished a blade in the vicinity of warders, as he had claimed.
The hearing continues before Mr Justice John Quirke and a jury of six men and six women.
