'I'm not saying she was asking for it but she knew what she was doing': Defence lawyer at Cork rape trial

The 18-year-old denies raping a young woman on March 18, 2017, at a location in Kerry when he was 15.

A jury of seven men and five women will hear the end of Mr Justice Paul McDermott’s closing address to them at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork tomorrow before commencing their deliberations.

Alice Fawsitt senior counsel for the prosecution reminded the jury today of evidence that the young woman was in a bedroom with seven strangers and that three of the men and one of the women physically assaulted her.

“She has been assaulted by four people of the seven strangers. A fifth person is holding a phone and videoing her as this is going on. Would you expect a woman to willingly consent to sexual intercourse after that? I would suggest you would not,” Ms Fawsitt said.

Referring to CCTV of the complainant and the defendant in the licensed premises where they met earlier that night, Ms Fawsitt suggested that “he is all over her. She spends most of the night talking to other women. She is not talking to other men.”

Moving on to the bedroom of the B&B where the disputed incident occurred, she said the defence was saying the dispute was about her getting out of a bed (which someone else argued he had paid for) and her account of other people saying she should get into bed (with the defendant).

“It is clear there was comments from two of the other boys that (defendant) should be having sex with her, wanting her to get with him.

“(Defendant) puts out his hand (in video recording of assault) to her and she does that (pushed it away),” Ms Fawsitt said.

Is that an act of him trying to help her or an act of ‘come on in’? I have to suggest it is more supportive of her account than any other account.

The prosecution senior counsel said the complainant found herself lying on the floor between the two beds after a bad beating by others. “He (defendant) came down. She was so beaten and tired she could not move. He had sexual intercourse with her. (Witness) said he hears her saying shush. She was not saying shush, she was saying stop,” she said.

Ms Fawsitt said the defendant said in one statement to gardaí that she pulled down her own pants and in another he said he pulled them down, and in one he said she was not that badly assaulted by others and in another he agreed she was badly assaulted and he remarked that if he and his friend had not intervened for her, “she was dead”.

Colman Cody, defence senior counsel, said: “There is an accumulating body of inconsistencies in the various accounts she has given to various parties, to the guards and to others.

“When she was back in the B&B she said she was locked in the bathroom with the person who (she said) raped her. No such allegation was made by her to the guards,” Mr Cody said.

The defence senior counsel said there was no doubt she was the victim of an unprovoked and vicious assault by others in the room that night, for which the defendant had no responsibility.

When examined by a doctor she said she had been punched in the face by another man after the alleged rape when she said she was going to the gardaí. Mr Cody said she did not say that in evidence in court.

Referring to evidence of her being in the corridor outside the room where she had been viciously assaulted he said, “This girl now has the opportunity. She has the chance to leave. On the one hand she said she could not leave without her shoes and bag. But at a later stage she said she did not care about the bag and shoes. She could not leave because her body was shut down.

In the text messages (she sent to her two friends after the assault and alleged rape) nowhere within these texts is there any reference to being the victim of sexual assault or rape… You would expect she would be telling her friends ‘I have been raped’.

“This is a young girl who was very badly assaulted and is so angry and upset she had decided to go a step further and make a false allegation against (defendant). She is simply so angry that is what she has done.

“I am not suggesting she was asking for it, to have sex with him. I am not suggesting that at all… She was 20. He was 15. I have to suggest that on the evidence she is a worldly young girl with experience of life. I am not saying she was asking for it but she knew what she was doing. She knew what she wanted. I have to suggest when they went back to the B&B the intention was they were going to have sex and it was of a consensual nature and they had it on two occasions.”