Man accused of raping boys says he had consensual sex with one later
AN ALLEGED IRA member accused of raping two teenage boys at a Republican safe house has told his trial he had consensual sex with one of the complainants years later.
The man (45) said he had stayed at the boys’ home about “half a dozen” times for up to two nights on each occasion in the early 1990s while working a casual job. He told John Fitzgerald SC, defending, that he got to know the two boys through this work, but denied sexually abusing them.
The accused said he finished this work in the 1990s and met one of the complainants, by chance, years later. He said this male revealed to him he was bisexual and they subsequently had a consensual sexual relationship over a few months.
The man has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin to charges of sexual assaulting and anally raping two boys in Co Louth on dates in the early 1990s and in 2001.
The man told Mr Fitzgerald he had noticed that the complainant with whom he’d had a sexual relationship seemed “distressed” during their final meeting.
He said the complainant informed him he had told by another person he had been sexually abused by him (the accused). The man said this was the last time he saw that complainant.
When asked by his counsel whether he had raped either boy or slept in a bed with them, he replied: “Absolutely not.”
Patrick Gageby SC, prosecuting, put it to the man that a large number of people had “invented” his “strong and long presence” at the home.
The man replied that “it would appear so” and agreed that he was the “victim of a series of unfortunate lies”.
The trial has reached closing stages before Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury.