Cork man accused of raping his partner's teenage sister
A Cork woman who claims her sister’s partner raped her while she was a teenager has told a jury that the man knew what he was doing was wrong and she hopes he suffers.
The now-23-year-old woman was giving evidence via video-link on the first day of the 35-year-old man’s trial at the Central Criminal Court.
He has pleaded not guilty to two charges of raping the then 15-year-old in his Cork home on dates between February and September 2004.
The woman told Isobel Kennedy SC, prosecuting that she had an argument with her mother in February 2004 and the accused and her sister agreed that she could stay at their house.
The woman said the night before her mock Junior Certificate Exams were to start she was babysitting for her sister and the accused.
She slept in a double bed in the couple’s bedroom along with another sister.
She said she was woken up by the accused because he was trying to take off her pyjamas bottoms and underwear. She said she could smell drink off him.
“He was at me, like a dog, down on all fours on his hands and knees. He was trying to get off my clothes,” the woman told the jury.
“He knows what he done. Why do I have to come here? He is probably getting great satisfaction looking at me, him looking smug. He knows what he done to me. Why doesn’t he just stand up and say it?”
She confirmed that her sister was still lying in the bed beside her at the time of the alleged incident.
The woman said the accused then got up on top of her and raped her.
“He raped me. I know what you are going to say, why didn’t my sister wake up. I don’t know why she didn’t wake up,” the woman told the jury.
“I felt sick. I was scared. I was afraid,” the woman said.
She told Ms Kennedy that she froze and didn’t do anything, while the accused told her to “ssshhh” but “not in a nice way”.
She told the jury that the accused brought her to school the next day and told her not to tell anyone. He said he would not let her see his son if she did.
The woman told the jury that in September 2004 the accused was to bring her to her friend’s birthday party.
She went to her sister’s house to get ready and was in a bathroom upstairs while the accused was in bed asleep in his son’s bedroom.
She said she then went into her sister’s bedroom to put her shoes on and the accused followed her. He told her to get on the bed and took off her tights.
She said she was too afraid to call for her sister who was downstairs.
The accused got on top of her after taking off his clothes and raped her. She said she just froze.
“I was 15. He was an adult. I was a child. He clearly knew I didn’t want it. He clearly knew what he was doing,” the woman told the jury.
“He has to live with what he has done to me for the rest of his life and I hope he suffers for the rest of his life,” she continued.
She said he got up afterwards as “if he had not a care in the world” and she had to get a lift with him later to the party.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Paul Carney and a jury of six men and six women.
