A FORMER prostitute told a bury at the Central Criminal Court she had no difficulty picking out the defendant from an identification parade as the driver of a car in which she was kidnapped and raped.
Two weeks before that parade on January 23rd, 1995, she had gone with gardai to Heuston Station and identified the defendant's Ford Escort estate car as the vehicle used during her ordeal, the young Dublin mother of two said.
She was being cross examined on the seventh day of the trial of a 36 year old man who has pleaded not guilty to falsely imprisoning her on the night of December 29th-30th, 1994. He also denies raping and sexually assaulting her in the Wicklow mountains later the same night.
During her cross examination, the jury was told that the defendant had instructed his counsel, Mr Blaise O'Carroll SC (with Mr Garnet Orange), to argue that not only was he innocent of the charges but that the woman was not abducted and raped as she claimed.
This was revealed by Mr O'Carroll following an interjection by Mr Justice Moriarty when counsel asked the woman a number of questions in relation to the sexual details of the alleged assaults.
The judge said that while he did not want to limit his cross examination of the witness in any way, he wondered whether it was necessary for Mr O'Carroll to question the woman on every sexual detail of her ordeal.
Mr Justice Moriarty said he understood the defendant's substantive case was that he had not committed the rape and was falsely suspected.
Mr O'Carroll agreed the defendant had told his legal team he was not there and did not do it. But he had also instructed his barristers to argue that the woman was not abducted and raped as she claimed.
Dealing with her identification of the defendant's car at Heuston Station, the woman agreed she initially told gardai her attacker's car was white. However, the defendant's car was silver. She said while she had been looking for a white car, she "copped" the silver ar straight away and knew it was the right one.
When Mr O'Carroll put it to her that she did not want to let gardai down, she replied. "I am not out to blame anyone who is not guilty."
However, she agreed she did not recall seeing any other Ford Escort estate car among the 13 to 15 cars at Heuston Station when she picked out the accused's car.
The woman told Mr O'Carroll she had made a sketch of the driver shortly after the alleged rape and later she had helped compile a computer photo fit of the car passenger.
She recalled being shown about 20 "mug shots" of suspects but she did not pick any out. The accused's photograph was not among them, she said.
She also agreed she had been told a suspect was in custody sometime before she viewed the identification parade but she was not told his name until after she identified the accused.
The woman said she had given gardai the Christian name by which the driver had been called by the second man. The driver was angry with his passenger for calling him that name. It was the same name as the accused's.
The woman further agreed she had told gardai the driver had worn a gold "graduation" ring with a red stone inset but now accepted that the defendant's gold ring had a green stone.
The trial continues.