Court copy by Eimear Dodd.
An Irish celebrity who is accused of the defilement of 16-year-old girl over a decade ago has told his trial that the complainant never went to his home.
The man (40), who cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not (NOT) guilty to three counts of engaging in sexual acts with a child under the age of 17 at locations in Dublin on dates between August and December 2010.
Giving evidence today, Friday, October 13, the man told defence counsel, Morgan Shelley Bl, that he met the woman om July 14, 2010, at an Eminem concert during the Oxegen music festival.
He said the complainant noticed him, then beckoned him over as, “I think she recognised me”.
He said they had a brief chat, then he put his number in her phone. He claimed he noticed she was holding a plastic cup which contained alcohol at the 17+ festival.
He claimed their first meeting after the festival was for lunch and that she had told him by text before this that she was 18.
The man said he was at work on December 14, 2010. He said he went out for drinks with a colleague afterwards, then took a taxi home around midnight.
When asked by Mr Shelley, the man said he “doesn’t recall” arranging tickets for the complainant for the Deadmaus concert on December 14, 2010, but that it’s “not impossible”.
He said she was not at his house on that date or on any other occasion.
“She was not in that house to the best of my recollection ever,” he said.
The man said the complainant contacted him in late January 2011, suggesting they meet up.
He said he believed they met on January 24, 2011. He said she told him it had recently been her birthday.
“I said ’19 is a no man’s land age, neither here or there’. She said ‘I’m not 19, I’m 17’. That was a little bit of a surprise or shock.
“I said, ‘You told me you were 18’. She said, ‘No I was sweet 16’. It was what it was, it was a bit of a shock.”
He said he’d gotten braces in the days before the lunch occurred. “I got them back on to get the pearly whites. She slagged me and said I ‘looked goofy and younger with the braces’.”
He said they went to his workplace after the meal. He denied using the fire escape stairs and said it “did not happen” that he and the woman were in the stairwell together.
He said there was no sexual interaction between him and the complainant on this date. He also denied any sexual interaction between himself and the complainant before this date.
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court has previously heard that the complainant initially told the man she was 18 when they first met. In her evidence, she said she told him her actual age before they engaged in sexual activity.
It is the State’s case that the man put his penis in the complainant’s mouth on three occasions, once in his workplace and twice in his home. The complainant was 16 at the time, while the man was then 27. He has denied any wrongdoing.
The trial continues.
