A young Kerry woman has told the Central Criminal Court she wasn’t in any shape or form to give consent to anything on the night she was allegedly raped and sexually assaulted.
The woman is the complainant in a Central Criminal Court trial sitting in Tralee this week before Mr Justice Michael McGrath.
She alleges she was raped and sexually assaulted by two men, one of whom was known to her before the incident and who she said she loved deeply, in 2020 when she was 16 years old.
The men, who are around the same age as the alleged victim, cannot be named.
Under cross examination today from Mark Nicholas, Senior Counsel for one of the accused men, the woman said she had been drinking with her parents and brothers in her family home on the night in question.
The woman and a female friend, who had also been at the house, sneaked out to meet with the two accused and a third man, who is not before the court, in an area near the house.
The woman told the court she could have had eight cans of cider to drink by that point, plus some wine, which she said is what made her most drunk.
Defending, Mark Nicholas put it to the woman she was trying to forgive and excuse what had happened that night by making out she had more to drink than she did.
He said she had previously told gardaí she had five cans of cider prior to meeting the men.
The woman replied that she didn’t know how much she had to drink that night, but she wasn’t in any shape or form to give consent to anything.
The woman, who at times appeared to be visibly shaking as she gave evidence, denied that she met the men that night for any potential sexual activity.
The defence put it to the woman that she had been kissing both men before the alleged attack before the first accused suggested a threesome, at which point the complainant and the two co-accused walked away together for that purpose.
The woman said she doesn’t remember kissing the co-accused, who she did not know, before the incident, and she alleges that the two men raped and sexually assaulted her when the three of them were alone together.
Mark Nicholas SC told the court his client says any sexual activity that happened was consensual, which the woman strongly and repeatedly denied.
The woman said she remembers looking back during the alleged attack and seeing the co-accused behind her and laughing, a laugh she said she will not forget until she is in her coffin.
She told the court that at this point, she asked the accused what he was letting the other co-accused do to her, as she thought he would protect her.
The woman also alleges she passed out after she began having sexual intercourse with the first accused later in the night, she woke up to him sexually assaulting her, and he then would not stop when she asked him to.
The defence put it to the woman she was experiencing regret after consensual sexual activity, to which she replied she has woken up with regret from a night out before, and this was not it.
