An Irish celebrity accused of engaging in sexual activity with an underage girl has taken the stand in his trial before a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
The man, who can’t be named because of the nature of the charges, is facing three charges of defilement on various dates in 2010, when she was just 16 years old.
When asked how he met the girl, the man on trial said it was at an Eminem concert at the Oxegen Music Festival in July 2010.
He claimed he went over to her after she noticed him by the stage and waved.
“Maybe she recognised me,” he said.
He said she put her number in his phone and during a text conversation sometime later, he claimed she told him she was 18yo and doing her Leaving Cert.
He claimed she only revealed her true age during a birthday lunch for her in Eddie Rocket’s in early 2011.
When she told him she had just turned 17, and not 19, he said, “that was a little bit of a surprise, or shock.”
He accepted that he brought her to his workplace but denied that any intimate acts ever took place there.
He also denied engaging in sexual acts with her in his house on two separate occasions, as alleged.
“Again, that didn’t happen,” he said.