A heroin addict has alleged in the Central Criminal Court that he was raped by a cellmate while serving a sentence in Mountjoy Prison in 1997.
A 35-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to raping the alleged victim and sexually assaulting him on June 28th, 1997, in Cell 8, B-Base, Mountjoy. The 22-year-old Dubliner told Mr Justice Carney and the jury he was then serving a nine-month sentence for handling stolen property and driving a stolen car. He was moved to B-Base for his own protection after being beaten up in a row over three £10 deals of heroin. He said he was then an addicted heroin abuser but was now on a physeptone treatment course. He shared cell 8 with the accused and two other prisoners. They smoked heroin and cannabis daily.
While in this new cell he had another row with a different prisoner about drugs on the outside and the accused beat up his attacker. He believed this man was taken to hospital. He was completely and utterly terrified in the cell at all times.
The witness, replying to prosecuting counsel Gregory Murphy SC, said the accused kept reassuring him for the rest of the day he would protect him. The accused gave him his share of sleeping medication that night.
Some hours later the accused doused him with water and dragged him against his will to his bed where he was raped. The alleged victim said he tried to scream but the accused kept his hand over his mouth and threatened him he would leave "in a body bag". He took this to mean the accused would kill him.
The third man in the cell slept through all this. He asked this man for protection and he promised he wouldn't let the accused repeat what he had done. The alleged victim told Mr Murphy he had never had any previous homosexual experience. Cross-examined by Mr Anthony Sammon SC, for the accused, the alleged victim denied he had concocted the story to make a case for compensation. He agreed he was on a daily dose of 75 milligrams of phsyeptone for his heroin addiction for over a year and was "afraid of going cold turkey". He didn't pay for the three heroin deals he got in Mountjoy before going on a substitute maintenance course. That was the only drugs debt he had there.
The alleged victim agreed with Mr Sammon he would have expected the prison officers on duty to have checked his cell when the alleged rape happened. Mr Niall Spellman, a prison officer on duty at B-Base on the night of the alleged incident, said the red security light at cell 8 was activated shortly after he came on duty. He checked the cell and found nothing suspicious. It was not activated again that night.
The jury also heard that all the officers' time recording clocks and report books were up to date and indicated nothing untoward was reported that night.