A MARK on the lip of a Roscommon farmer was "consistent" with a bite, a rape trial was told yesterday. Dr John Kennan said he was clinically confident the mark was not a coldsore as the accused man had claimed to gardai investigating the alleged rape of a mother of six.
The mark consisted of two deep puncture wounds and two superficial ones made by a pincertype movement, he told the jury of seven men and five women.
The doctor said he had never seen such an injury before. This was in reply to defence counsel Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC who suggested bites might be exchanged during consensual sexual intercourse.
Earlier, the Co Galway woman claimed she bit the accused man on the lip drawing blood, as he tried to kiss her.
The 51 year old father has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to raping and sexually assaulting the woman, on July 30th, 1995.
The woman has told the court the accused man gave her a lift from a Co Galway pub because she wanted to visit a friend in Roscommon. The accused man said he was hungry and stopped at his home to make sandwiches, she said.
Gardai gave evidence that the accused man originally claimed no sex had taken place in the house when he was questioned the following day.
He was charged in January 1996. Earlier this year, accompanied by his solicitor, he returned to gardai with a prepared statement in which he claimed the woman had instigated sexual activity. In the statement, he said she made a comment he took to mean she was "desperate for sex". She became worried as to what she might tell her husband to explain her absence, he said.
The accused said they went to a Roscommon pub where she produced her underpants, claiming she had been raped.
Det Garda Colm Cosgrave told prosecution counsel Mr Michael Durack SC that he approached the accused man on July 31st, 1995. He agreed to drive to Roscommon Garda station and was arrested for questioning there.
The man said he had gone to the pub in Co Galway after Mass with his son, and the woman's husband shouted at him: "You were with my wife last week". He replied: "Get your facts straight, I was not."
In answer to gardai, the accused man said he knew the woman and her husband from local pubs and described her as a "heavy drinker". He said he had never gone out with her.
When he left the pub with his son, she ran out and blocked his car so that she could get into it.
In his house, she was crying, saying she had six children and expressing concern she might have been "caught again".
He said she kissed him in his garden. He probably kissed her back but there was no question of sex or having locked her in his dining room, he told gardai.
Det Garda Cosgrave said when it was put to the accused man that the woman had alleged rape, he replied: "If she did, I will go the distance with her."
The accused man said he had had sex with his partner the morning of the alleged incident and that "a man of 50 would be quiet after that". He said the alleged", victim would not "appeal" to him.
Sgt John Freeley told the court the accused man came to Roscommon Garda station on February 7th, 1997 with the prepared statement admitting sexual activity.
Asked about the difference with his earlier account, the accused man replied: "I do not trust the gardai. I and my family have been harassed by the gardai down through the years. You know that, don't you".
The trial before Mr Justice Flood and the jury continues.