A man on trial for falsely claiming a priest raped him has denied that he had planned to sue the priest as well as a nun and a Christian Brother whom he also named to gardaí.
He agreed during his second day under cross-examination by prosecuting counsel, Dominic McGinn, that he hadn't been sexually abused by the named Brother but had wrongly told gardaí he had been.
He also agreed with Mr McGinn that he "had a problem" with practically all of the lay and religious witnesses whom he claimed were "lying to protect the church".
"Everyone else except you has got their evidence wrong then," Mr McGinn commented, on day 12 of the trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
The 33-year-old accused, who cannot be named for legal reasons, denies making a false statement to Det Garda Brian Kavanagh at Kevin Street Garda station on June 18th, 2003, that acts of indecent assault and buggery had been committed on him by the priest in the period February to May 1981.
He told Mr McGinn it was because he was "a timid six-year-old boy" and "terrified" of the priest that he didn't scream and run out of the room to his waiting mother in the hallway when he alleges he was sexually abused, and thereby, as counsel suggested, putting a stop to it.
Mr McGinn asked the accused how, if he was such a timid six-year-old boy, he could bring himself, as he claimed in evidence, to threaten to bite the priest's penis off if he attempted oral sex on him.
"I was fed up at this time," the accused replied, and said again he was "frightened" of the priest when asked by Mr McGinn:
"What bravery made you stand up to him and say you would bite off his penis and he threatening the devil would get you, but you couldn't tell your waiting parents about the sexual abuse?" Mr McGinn asked.
The accused then replied "Yes" when Mr McGinn put to him: "Do you accept you were not so frightened that you could say that to him and that you would not allow him do anything he wanted?"
When counsel suggested that he had waited 23 years before telling a lie to gardaí that he had been sexually abused by a named Christian Brother, the accused agreed he hadn't been sexually abused by any Christian Brother but said the named person had tried to take down his trousers.
He said he "certainly would have told" his mother about physical abuse through being "boxed" and made kneel on pencils by a Brother in fifth class, when he was aged 11 or 12, but "she did nothing about it".
The accused also agreed with Mr McGinn that in his letter formally alleging the sexual abuse, he made a false claim of being sexually abused by the named Brother, but denied he was preparing also to sue the Brother after he had sued the priest.
Pressed by Mr McGinn about a financial request he made to the priest, the accused said he thought the priest would help him with various things like old books, but that he wasn't "looking for money directly".