Contradictions, large and small, emerge in the narrative as claims of ‘damage limitation’ heard

IT WAS “damage limitation”, the detective had suggested to Rory Harrison during his final interview. Going for lunch the next day had offered the friends a chance to “get around the table to talk about what happened”, he put it to him.

“I deny that,” Mr Harrison had said.

The detective continued, saying the alleged victim had said he did nothing wrong and on the face of it, that was true. However, he put it to him that he had deliberately intended to withhold information to protect his friends.

“You knew this was not consensual from an early stage,” said the detective.

“You took her off-site to protect their reputations.

“It was a deliberate act on your part in the hope of calming her down and to discourage her from going to the police.”

They had all met up the next day to provide his friends with the opportunity of corroborating their story, the detective continued.

“I deny it,” Mr Harrison had repeated.

“Rory has given his full explanation for everything,” his solicitor told the police, after his client had been further pressed.

Having lost a juror earlier in the day as a result of a medical report submitted to Judge Patricia Smyth, the hearing proceeded at some pace.

Not for the first time, many considerable contradictions, large and small, emerged in the narrative.

In a repeat of the format used to read out Paddy Jackson’s police interviews, Mr Harrison’s interviews were dramatised, with the detective in the box reading his own lines and, this time, Rosemary Walsh, for the prosecution, reading the part of the defendant in her soft London tones.

It was admittedly slightly incongruous.

Unlike Mr Harrison’s, Blane McIlroy’s police interviews were played aloud in court, containing his claim that the alleged victim had voluntarily performed a sex act on him – although this is inconsistent with the accounts of all the other parties, including the alleged victim herself.

Smaller details were also gleaned – such as the fact Mr Harrison did not consider Paddy Jackson, Stuart Olding or Blane McIlroy to be his “best friends or anything like that”, and did not socialise with them often. Mr McIlroy lives in America, so he ‘rarely’ sees him, he added.

Without having been given any details, Mr Harrison was asked how he had guessed rape as the reason why the police had become involved.

Mr Harrison had said it was because they were “high-profile sports stars” and “that’s what you see all over the news”.