A 50-year-old postman has gone on trial at the Roscommon Circuit Criminal Court charged with perverting the course of justice by intentionally tampering with a urine sample.
The sample was provided to gardaí by a friend of his who was arrested on suspicion of drink driving.
Kevin Rogers, of Moate Park, Roscommon, was working as a retail manager in the central post office in Roscommon town on the day a sample taken from his friend Michael Lyons was collected from an outlying post office and brought to the Roscommon office to be sent to the medical bureau in Dublin.
Roscommon Circuit Court was told today that the urine sample had been heated and effectively destroyed when it arrived in the medical bureau.
The seal on the container had been broken, the bottle was empty and there was evidence it was subjected to heat.
A jury of seven men and five women was told at the outset of the case today that there will be evidence from a specialist witness that the urine sample had been placed in a microwave oven.
The court was also told of circumstantial evidence against Mr Rogers and that there was a microwave oven in the kitchen upstairs in the post office.
Mr Rogers has pleaded not guilty to the charge of perverting the course of justice.
Garda Phil Weafer told the court he arrested Michael Lyons on suspicion of drink driving on Saturday 3 March 2012 after a woman was knocked down at a pedestrian crossing near the CBS school in Roscommon town.
On the following Monday he posted a urine sample given by Mr Lyons to the medical bureau.
This afternoon a senior analyst of the Medical Bureau told the trial that when she examined the urine sample after it arrived at the bureau, she found the seal was broken in two halves on the container and the bottle had no sample in it.
She said she checked to see if the cap on the bottle was secure and it popped off as if it had been pressurised.
The trial is expected to continue for another three days.
