A 14-year-old boy has told a Dublin Circuit Criminal Court jury that he was raped by an 18-year-old Co Clare man, who also held him down while another youth raped him on a separate occasion.
The boy, giving his evidence by video-link, said he remembered an incident when the accused came out of his house with his Alsatian and threatened to set it on him unless he came inside.
He said that when he went inside there were two other youths on top of each other on the couch. They stopped when he came in and the accused held him to the ground and told one of the other youths to rape him.
The boy told Mr Stephen Coughlan BL, prosecuting, that the accused then asked him to perform oral sex on him but he told him that he didn't do that sort of thing. The witness then said his sister came to the door looking for him and he left. The accused has denied two counts of buggery and one count of sexual assault on the then 11-year-old boy between February 1st and April 1st, 2000.
He has also pleaded not guilty to buggery and sexually assaulting a 12-year-old boy between December 25th, 2000 and March 3rd, 2001.
The then 11-year-old boy said that on a prior occasion he was playing in the handball alley near his home and went to the toilet at some point. He said he was grabbed by another youth, not the accused, who put him over a bench and raped him
He said a short time later the accused came into the toilet and also buggered him.
The witness told Mr John Phelan SC, for the accused, in cross-examination, that one of the other youths who was in the house at the time he claims he was buggered was "well-known for doing bad things to young boys." He said he went into the house because the accused threatened to set his dog on him and he had seen him doing it to other people before. Mr Phelan said that two other witnesses would tell the court that there was no dog with the accused when the boy went in but witness insisted there was.
He also denied that he had borrowed a game from the accused on the night and said he just said that to his mother, who went up to the house with his sister, because she didn't want him going into that house.
The other alleged victim, who is now 15, told Mr Coughlan that he remembered being in the handball alley with the first witness and the youth who was known "for doing some bad things to young boys" but couldn't recall anything happening.
The trial continues.