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Jury in trial of celebrity accused of sex acts with girl asks judge to read back evidence

The selection concerned what the complainant had said about the accused showing her braces he had on his teeth.

Today at 10:47

A JURY has resumed deliberations in the trial of a well-known entertainer accused of sexual acts with an underage schoolgirl.

The jurors had been considering a verdict for more than three hours when they suspended deliberations yesterday evening.

Deliberations resumed at 10.44am this morning at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

The celebrity (40), who cannot be identified, is charged with defilement of a child under 17 – the legal age of consent.

He denies having oral sex with the girl three times between August and December 2010, when he was 27 and she was 16.

He maintains the incidents never happened, with a second line of defence that he had an “honest belief” that she was over 17 at the time.

This morning, Judge Pauline Codd read back some of the evidence that had been heard in the trial, following a request by the jury.

The selection concerned what the complainant had said about the accused showing her braces he had on his teeth.

The defence contends the timing of this is relevant because the accused had evidence that he only had the braces fitted in January 2011, when the girl turned 17.

Judge Codd read back to the jury what they had heard when defence barrister Morgan Shelley cross-examined the complainant about her garda statement.

Mr Shelley had read out what she said in the statement about the first alleged incident at the accused’s home in 2010.

“I remember now that I think about it that he had gotten braces, they were clear ones, I didn’t notice them until he told me he had got them,” she had told gardai.

Questioned about this, the complainant had told Mr Shelley she could not really remember when it was.

“It may have been that time, it may have been another time, I can’t pinpoint the exact date,” she had testified.

Mr Shelley had asked her if it was possible the accused had the braces for all three alleged incidents.

“I don’t think so,” she had replied, and she did not remember him pointing them out to her the day of the alleged workplace incident.

“You remember he had braces,” Mr Shelley had said.

“At some point, yes,” she had replied. “During one of the times we met, he pointed out his braces.”

Mr Shelley had asked her if it was when she was 16.

“I can’t recall when, I was just giving as much evidence as I could at the time ,” she had said.

Mr Shelley had asked if she just did not know when he got the braces.

“I definitely know it wasn’t at the time of the (workplace) incident,” she had said.

Asked if he had them during the other two incidents, she said: “I’m not sure if he had them then or if it was later. I’m not sure when he got them.”

The judge advised the jury that it was only the complainant’s answers to the questions about her statement that were to be taken as evidence.

She then sent them back out to resume deliberations.

During the trial, the complainant accepted she initially lied to the accused that she was 18 after they first met at the

Oxegen music festival that year, but alleged she revealed she was 16 by text before they began a sexual relationship.

She alleged she gave him oral sex once in a stairwell at his Dublin workplace in late August 2010 and twice at his home in the city on dates including December 14 that year.

The accused insists he never had any sexual contact with the girl until she was 18.

He said she only revealed her real age after her 17th birthday, in January 2011, and that was the only time he took her to his workplace.

He denied that anything sexual happened between them there, or that they were ever in the stairwell. He said she was never at his home at all.