Alleged rape victim denies kissing accused
A Limerick woman who alleges she was raped as she walked home alone in the early hours of Halloween Night has denied she earlier kissed the accused and then forced herself on him when they met on the road.
Two men who heard the now 31-year-old woman scream that she was being raped related how they saw two people on the ground and held the accused at the scene until gardai arrived after he gave them the wrong name for the woman.
A 21-year-old Limerick man has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to raping and sexually assaulting the woman on October 31, 2005 in a Co Limerick town.
The woman told defence counsel, Mr Anthony Sammon SC (with Mr Laurence Gouchier BL), during her cross-examination on day-three of the trial, that she was "only merry" that night.
She further agreed with Mr Sammon she had drunk about seven vodka and Red Bull drinks while socialising with her sister and at the time was taking antidepressant medication which was not supposed to be mixed with alcohol but insisted she had not been drunk and had known "what I was doing".
She denied Mr Sammon's suggestion that she had approached the accused in a local nightclub and kissed him or that she had "forced herself on him" when she met him on the road after the club had closed.
She agreed with Mr Sammon that an examination at the sexual assault treatment centre in Cork had not found any injuries consistent with being pushed roughly to the ground and held tightly by her upper arms but said that she did not bruise easily.
Mr Paidi O'Sullivan told prosecuting counsel, Ms Deirdre Murphy SC (with Ms Karen O'Connor BL), that he and Mr Michael McMahon had been walking to a friend's house after a night's socialising when they heard a woman screaming: "Help me, boys, help me. He's raping me."
They walked towards the screams and saw two people on the ground. The accused got up and told them he had met the woman in a local nightclub. He identified her as "Geena".
Mr O'Sullivan said he asked the woman her name and she told them a different name.
Mr McMahon told Ms Murphy that the accused went to answer his phone which started to ring. He took the phone from the accused and looked at the caller ID which said "Mam". He put the phone in his pocket and he and Mr Sullivan held the accused until the gardai arrived.
Mr McMahon said the woman had been hysterical. "She was just crying 'thank you very much for helping me. Please don't let him go'."
Garda Patrick Holland told Ms Murphy that after his colleague had taken the woman away, he read the accused his rights and asked him if he had anything to say. The accused replied that he had met a woman "calling herself Geena" in the disco and she had followed him up the road asking to have sex with him.
He said when she tried to drag him away he pushed her, making her fall and she then started to scream. Gda Holland told Ms Murphy that the accused refused to sign a note of this conversation.
The hearing continues before Mr Justice Barry White and the jury of five women and seven men.
