An alleged IRA man has gone on trial accused of raping two teenage boys in a republican safe house in the 1990s.
The man (45) has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to charges of sexual assaulting and anally raping the boys in Co Louth on dates in the early 1990s and in 2001.
Patrick Gageby SC, prosecuting, said in his opening speech that the complainants lived in a large home owned by a “dedicated republican” which began to be used as a safe house.
A man told Mr Gageby that he lived in the house in the 1980s and 1990s and that IRA volunteers would be brought there during the night and would stay for a few days or weeks.
He said the accused first came to stay in the house around 1991 or 1992 and became part of the family. The complainant looked up to him as a “big brother figure”, the court heard.
The man said the accused began to abuse him when he was 13 or 14. He said he woke up to find the accused masturbating his penis on four occasions and performing oral sex on him twice.
He said he would push the accused away when he woke up and that the man would apologise. He said that after the first occasion the accused asked him not to tell anyone about what happened and talked about his experience in the IRA.
The complainant said he went camping with the accused in a nearby field and fell asleep in the tent after becoming intoxicated. He woke up to find his head pushed down and the accused anally raping him. He said the accused told him to be quiet and to stay still. He said he felt confused about what was happening aside from that he knew he “was being broken in every way imaginable”.
The man said that in 2001 he was living on his own in another part of Co Louth when the accused arrived to his door. The accused convinced him to go for some drinks and while out he apologised for the things he had done to him years ago.
He said that they went back to his house and that he remembers sitting on his couch while drunk. He said the next thing he knew he was face down in his bed and the accused had his penis inside him. He said that he did not agree to this.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury.