A man accused of rape told a jury in the Central Criminal Court yesterday that as a boy he had been sexually abused by the alleged victim, who has cerebral palsy.
Asked during cross-examination by Ms Maureen Clark SC, prosecuting, about blood found on the alleged victim's shorts and jeans, he replied: "Like I said, he is setting me up".
Shown a photograph of the alleged victim, in which he had a black eye and a wound on his throat, the accused said he was not responsible for the knife wound. "He did it himself. He is setting me up. There is nothing he wouldn't do", he said.
He said the alleged victim had attacked him with a knife when he called to his flat in a drunken state, to remonstrate with him about the alleged abuse, which he said he suffered from the age of 11 or 12 until he was 16.
He fell asleep in a chair and the next morning the alleged victim again attacked him again with a knife. He hit him in the face and then kicked him on the ground. The accused man also claimed that the alleged victim was faking the extent of his disability. "He can run too," he said.
The 27-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to raping, sexually assaulting, and assaulting the victim, occasioning him actual bodily harm, in his flat in Munster on March 20th last year. The victim has said he believes he is aged in his 30s but wasn't sure.
Ms Clark (with Ms Una McGurk) put it to the accused that blood found by gardai in the alleged victim's flat, on his clothes and bed were consistent with a brutal rape by him. The accused replied: "It's not. I did not".
The man and his friend told Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC (with Ms Sarah Berkeley), defending, that when they were skate boarding, aged about 10 or 11, the alleged victim approached them and asked them to paint his flat.
They claimed the man gave them cigarettes and alcohol in the flat on many other occasions. He later gave them a door key.
He showed them "blue movies" and pretended to get drunk, when he stripped off and "played" with himself. He also fondled the accused and got him to engage in oral sex.
The alleged victim would also light a fire and make the room so hot "we would have to strip off", the accused said.
Ms Clark put it to the accused's friend that he had learned "the script" well. The man replied: "It's not a script, it's the truth". She asked both men if they had got sick when drinking alcohol and smoking at the age of 10 or 11. Both men said they did not.
They also claimed that the drinking and abuse by the man continued over a number of years. They had never been caught coming home to their families in a drunken state because they went straight to bed on each occasion.
The trial before Mr Justice Carney and the jury continues on Monday.