The trial of the man accused of murdering baby Millie Martin heard on Tuesday that when initially arrested for raping the 15-month-old toddler, he appealed to his then partner, the child’s mother: “Trust me.”
The former lovers, 33-year-old Barry Michael McCarney, and 27-year-old Rachael Martin, are on trial at Dungannon Crown Court on charges arising out of the toddler’s death on December 11 2009.
For a second day running the jury of nine men and three women heard details of statements to police made by McCarney, of Woodview Crescent, Trillick, who denies murdering and sexually and physically abusing Baby Millie.
He was initially arrested at Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital for Sick Children, where the youngster was taken from the Erne Hospital in Enniskillen after being rushed there by McCarney.
He was in the waiting room with Martin when a police officer approached him and told him he was under arrest for the rape of baby Millie.
McCarney then turned to Martin, telling her: “Don’t listen to what he says. Trust me.”
The court also heard that up until then McCarney regarded himself and Martin as having “a very good relationship”, and that they were “friends” as well as partners, and that he “done everything right, I don’t want to mess up this relationship”.
McCarney told police that on the Wednesday before she died, Millie looked as if she had a really bad dose of flu, and that she was limp and had no energy.
He also described how, on the day before the infant was fatally injured, he’d sent Martin texts from work telling her “how much I loved her”.
However, when she collected him from work later that day “she just said she had the worst day and couldn’t stick it” and that Millie wasn’t well and wasn’t eating.
McCarney told the police Martin “is a bit highly strung” and “this is the worst I ever seen her”, and that at one point she broke down in tears.
He also claimed that while his former lover “gets stressed easily. I get stressed but not when it comes to the kids”.
The court again heard that although McCarney claimed he had tried to act as a dad to Millie, that he had only looked after her once, for an hour, when she was in bed and her mother was shopping.
McCarney also told police that if Martin “scooted” down to the shop he would have “watched” the child, and while he had two children of his own, he had never changed a nappy “because I don’t do none of that, I don’t change nappies”.
The court is expected to hear more of McCarney’s police interviews today.
It is still unclear when the jury will hear what Millie’s mother told police. Martin, from Main Street, Kesh, denies wilfully neglecting and allowing the death of her daughter.