Rape accused was agitated the morning after alleged incident, court hears
The former girlfriend of a man accused of falsely imprisoning, raping, sexually assaulting and threatening to kill a female escort has told a Central Criminal Court jury that when she spoke to him by telephone the morning after the alleged incident, he sounded “agitated, confused and not making any sense”.
The woman, who had been in a relationship with the accused man for a number of years at the time of the alleged offences, was spending the night with a friend.
The 40-year-old Dublin man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty to false imprisonment, oral rape, rape, sexual assault with a mobile phone, sexual assault with the threat of violence and threats to kills the woman on December 9, 2009 at a Dublin address.
The ex-girlfriend told Mr Patrick Marrinan SC, prosecuting, she left their apartment at 3.15pm to get a 4pm bus and said she tried to phone the accused at 9 pm that night but “his phone was switched off.”
“I woke up at 6am the next day and I had loads of missed calls and text messages. I had a voice mail from my mother saying gardaí were coming to visit my home place,” said the ex-girlfriend.
“I thought then that something had happened to my boyfriend,” she said.
She said she rang his mobile phone and when she spoke to him “he sounded agitated, confused and wasn’t making any sense.”
“I was initially relived to hear his voice as I thought something had happened to him, that he was dead or something,” she told Mr Marrinan.
She said the accused told her he had helped a man who had a heart attack outside their apartment block and as this had an affect on him, he went to a Head Shop to buy ‘legal highs’.
“He also told me that he thought he had assaulted a woman,” she said.
“As I was still away I told him to contact his family and the gardaí and then I got the 8am bus back to Dublin,” she explained.
She said when she got back to Dublin she phoned him again but he couldn’t talk as he was in with a solicitor and that eventually she met up with him at 5.30pm at Heuston Station.
“He was very panicky and upset and he was crying,” she told Mr Marrinan. “We had an emotional conversation and he told me to move on with my life. I didn’t ask him anymore details about the assault but he said he thought he was a bad person.”
She said she met him later that evening and they both went to another friend’s house where he told her he had brought a prostitute back to the apartment.
“I got upset then and he asked me to stay but I wouldn’t and I left,” she said.
Under cross-examination the ex-girlfriend agreed with Mr Brendan Grehan SC, that they had never any difficulties in their relationship.
“We were very happy,” she told Mr Grehan.
She told Mr Grehan that the accused started taking Mephedrone in October 2009 and that it was a drug which was freely available to purchase in Head Shops in 2009 for €30 a bag.
“The effect is like cocaine,” she said, “it’s an upper sort of drug and back then everyone seemed to be taking it.
“He would take the drug socially but I think he was taking it more often than I knew.”
“He did try to tell me he was having a problem with the drug but I didn’t really read too much into that,” she added.
She agreed with Mr Grehan that he was “in a very strange state of mind” when she met him the day after the alleged incident.
“The way he was acting was totally out of character with him,” she said.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Paul Butler and a jury of seven men and five women.
