A teenage girl told a jury yesterday that a man accused of raping and murdering a schoolgirl in Co Galway tried to chat her up the night of the killing.
He had told her how long it had been since he was with a girl when she spoke to him in a pub.
In the Central Criminal Court, a 26-year-old Co Galway man, who cannot be named, is on trial for the murder of the 17-year-old girl and two counts of raping her in the early hours of 6 December, 1998. He denies all the charges.
Giving evidence to Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, prosecuting, the girl said she was in a village pub. Her father was also in the pub. She spoke with the accused for 20 to 25 minutes.
She said there was only one thing she could remember the accused saying: "That he hadn't gone out with a girl for three months and that was the longest time he had ever gone since he was 13 without a girl.
"I had the impression that he wanted me to go with him."
She said the accused was also "slagging" her about another youth in their company and had asked would she go with that youth. Her answer was no. Mr Buckley asked if she had been anxious to go out with the accused. She replied: "No." Other witnesses told the court that the accused was upset and agitated when they saw him outside a hotel around midnight. A man said that shortly after 12.30 a.m. he saw the accused opposite the hotel. Later, at 2.45 a.m., he saw the accused at a chip shop. He was having an argument with a blond man, and "hit him two punches".
The jury has already heard from local gardai who were called to a fight at the hotel shortly before midnight. The prosecution alleges that after that fight and before the fight in the chip shop the accused raped and murdered the girl.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Smith and a jury.