A teacher on trial for sexually abusing mentally handicapped youths claimed in several dramatic outbursts to the jury in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that gardaí had lied and poisoned the minds of the alleged victims.
He broke down weeping loudly several times while in the witness box and claimed that gardaí lied throughout the trial and had alerted the media to his first appearance in the local District Court after he said he spent the night "in a dirty cell".
The 48-year-old married father of two from Co Tipperary has pleaded not guilty to a total of four charges of sexual assault on two mentally impaired youths from a special home in Limerick, in Clare and in his own home between September 1st, 1994, and March 31st, 1997.
He claimed that gardaí had had "humiliating" bail conditions imposed on him in court and that he had been forced to sign on at the Garda station "like a common criminal".
Gardaí didn't like it when he continued to protest his innocence and told them it was their fault that the alleged victims had made their accusations against him. He claimed that gardaí only wrote down a fraction of what was said at interviews and left out their threats to him.
He said he was first arrested early one morning and had to spend two nights in "a dirty cell" before being released.
He accused one garda of threatening that his children would be taken from him and placed in care unless he admitted the allegations.
He was arrested the second time for formal charging in the evening by a female officer while his wife was away and his children were playing outdoors with neighbours.
The trial continues before Judge Yvonne Murphy and a jury of six men and six women.