NORRISTOWN, Pa. — Bill Cosby’s lawyers gave a blistering preview of the questions the actor’s accuser will face at trial, as a judge refused to dismiss the sex-assault case at a preliminary hearing.

The defense Tuesday attacked the consistency of Andrea Constand’s police statements; offered context to her friendship with Cosby; and insisted she gave consent to the sex acts that occurred at his home near Philadelphia in early 2004.

Constand did not testify, a decision meant to spare her from being cross-examined before trial. Under a recent state law, prosecutors can instead have witness statements read into the record.

The defense objected to Constand’s absence during the half-day hearing, which marked the first time that police statements from either Constand or Cosby, 78, have been aired in public. Defense lawyer Brian McMonagle complained that he could not challenge her account.

“They chose not to present a witness to make an accusation against Mr. Cosby. So you’re left with what’s on that paper,” McMonagle argued referring to the statement.

No trial date has been set, and lawyers are expected to spend months arguing over what evidence can be used — most notably, whether other accusers can testify and whether Cosby’s deposition from Constand’s civil lawsuit can be used.

McMonagle on Tuesday suggested that Constand was having a relationship with a married man and that the pair had engaged in “petting” during a few earlier visits to his home. Constand, in her statement, said she had brushed off his advances.

On the night in question, she said that Cosby urged her to take three blue pills “to take the edge off” her stress and to wash them down with wine he had poured. Twenty minutes later, her legs turned to “jelly.”

“Everything was blurry and dizzy,” Constand told police. “I told him, ‘I can’t even talk, Mr. Cosby.’ I started to panic.”

McMonagle argued that Constand “voluntarily” took the pills and perhaps had a bad reaction. He said she was “incapacitated by her own hand, by her own drinking.” And he questioned her continued contact with Cosby in the year between their encounter and her first call to police.