A man who allegedly raped and sexually assaulted his younger sister told gardai that all his brothers and sisters used to "mess around" as teenagers and hug each other at bedtime.Mr Barry White SC, defending, read from the defendant's statement: "We messed as teenagers, both the boys and the girls, and we used to push and hug one another at bedtime. I might have rubbed up against my sisters a few times," he said.The 36-year-old man from Co Dublin has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to 13 charges of rape and sexual assault of his sister. The charges include seven of indecent assault between March 1980 and March 1985, and six of rape between April 1981 and May 1988.A garda agreed with Mr White that in his statement, the defendant said that when he was aged 17, he found a magazine and brought it into the bathroom where his sister was and she asked him to perform a sexual act. He said `no way'." He said what had happened between him and his sister was "all fantasy". The witnesses agreed with Mr White that the defendant said he never fantasised about his sister, only about the girls in the magazines. He said he never had full intercourse with any of his sisters.The defendant also claimed in the statement that he never jumped into bed with any of his sisters and that he never went into the shed with his sister where some of the abuse allegedly took place.Mr White argued that four Garda witnesses were not happy to accept `no' for an answer in the interview process or to accept his account and suggested he was not let go until he "told all".Each of the Garda witnesses denied Mr White's further suggestion that his client was struck and thumped on six or seven occasions by one of them throughout the interview.
They also denied they had transcribed the questions they asked into narrative form.The jury had heard that the victim also claimed to have been sexually abused by three other brothers. She claimed four of her brothers, including the defendant, sexually assaulted her three to five times a week over eight years.The trial continues before Mr Justice Kearns.