A garda who investigated a rape in a Co Tipperary town has told a jury that he did not interview the defendant's cousin in relation to the incident. He told Mr Patrick Treacy (with Ms Maureen Clark SC), defending, that he had been based in the town for 24 years. He identified the defendant as a suspect within seconds of hearing the alleged victim's description of her attacker.
The 25-year-old woman claimed her attacker had blond hair and was tall. She thought he had attended a certain school and named an area of the town where she thought he lived.
Apart from the defendant the only other family in the area with blond hair were of short stature, the garda said.
He was giving evidence yesterday to the Central Criminal Court in the trial of a 23-year-old man who denies raping the woman, assaulting her and attempting to choke her with intent to enable him to rape her after midnight on September 4th-5th, 1994.
Mr Treacy asked the garda if he would have been surprised to learn that another person in the area could have been called to mind from the woman's description. The garda said he would.
Counsel said the defendant lived next door to his cousin, who was about the same height as his client and had curly blond hair.
The garda said he knew this man was now living in the area but he did not know where he was residing at the time of the rape. He said he never interviewed him.
He said he was not aware that the cousin and three other relatives had been walking on a bridge in the general area of the attack about midnight.
The garda said an appeal had been broadcast on the local radio after the rape for a group of four people who had been on the bridge. Four different people came forward.
Mr Treacy suggested he had not tried to catch the man guilty of the rape but that he had set out to get evidence which would point to the defendant. The garda said this was untrue.
The trial before Mrs Justice McGuinness today.