Man accused of rape denies being abusive to gardaí

A man on trial accused of raping and assaulting his wife has denied being abusive to gardaí­as they walked past him in the courtroom.

The 42-year-old spent day seven of his trial in the Central Criminal Court giving evidence in his own defence.

He denied raping, threatening and head-butting his wife as their marriage was breaking down in 2014.

He has already pleaded guilty to assaulting his wife with a hammer in August of that year.

He told the jury on Wednesday that he was “deeply sorry” for this attack and that it was out of character for him.

At the start of her cross-examination, prosecuting counsel Mary Rose Gearty SC asked the man if he had said "you f****r" to gardaí­before they had given evidence earlier in the trial.

She asked if he had said the words to one or both of the officers as they passed the defendant’s area on their way to the witness stand.

The accused replied that he “absolutely” did not.

He told Ms Gearty that gardaí had broken two of his ribs when they arrested him after the hammer attack and he had been brought to hospital the next day.

Married life

The man told his defence counsel, Padraig Dwyer SC, that he met his wife in 1999 and they were very happy together until “something changed” after the birth of their child.

He said the marriage became strained because his wife was working too hard and her family did not like him.

He said their child slept in the same bed as them and was breastfed until the age of four. He said he had difficulties with this.

He said he wasn’t invited into his wife’s parents’ home until after they were married and that when he was there he would be excluded from the conversation.

He said he was very offended when his mother-in-law said he was not invited on a shopping trip to New York.

“I am a shopaholic, I could spend days in a shop,” he said.

He said there was also some money trouble in the marriage and his wife wanted to get a loan against his wishes.

Allegations

Regarding allegations that he head-butted his wife and told her to go upstairs and take off her clothes, he said he had pushed her and she had hit her head on a press, leaving a “tiny” scratch.

He said he had told her to go upstairs in order to put their son to bed.

He denied that, on another occasion, he soaked the living-room in flammable liquid before smoking a cigarette.

He said he was not allowed to smoke inside the house.

He further denied that he lay on top of his wife and told her he could rape her whenever he want.

“That absolutely never happened,” he said. “The first I heard of it was in this trial, I would never to my own wife use words like that.”

On the night of the alleged rape he denied threatening to cut her face off with a carving knife.

He said he had a butter knife in his hand as he told his wife to go upstairs, but he subsequently went to bed in a separate room.

The trial continues on Thursday before Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy and a jury of 11 men and one woman.