Three men have gone on trial at the Central Criminal Court accused of raping and sexually assaulting a woman they met in a Dublin nightclub.
The three accused, aged between 34 and 42, with addresses in Dublin and Wicklow, have pleaded not guilty to a total of seven counts of rape, oral rape and sexual assault of the woman at an unknown location in a car and in a Dublin house on August 31st, 2019. The men cannot be named for legal reasons.
The first man (39), with an address in Dublin, denies one count of raping the woman at his home address, one count of oral rape and one count of sexually assaulting her in a car.
The second man (42), with an address in Wicklow, has pleaded not guilty to one count of raping the woman in the car and one count of raping her in the house.
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The third man (34), with an address in Dublin, has pleaded not guilty to orally raping the woman in the house and sexually assaulting her in the car.
In his opening address on Tuesday, Karl Finnegan SC, prosecuting, told the jury that while a complainant in a trial usually has very clear evidence of what allegedly happened to them, “that’s not what we have in this case”.
He said the complainant’s recollection of events on the night in question was “extremely fragmented”.
The court heard that the woman and her friend were in a nightclub in Dublin city centre and got talking to the three accused, who were unknown to them. At some point, the woman’s friend decided to leave but she stayed in the club talking and engaging with the three men.
The woman next remembered “some important details”, the jury was told. She recalled getting into what she thought was a seven seater taxi with a group of what she thought was four men. She recalled someone having sex with her in the back of the car; she recalled who she thought was the taxi driver getting into the car beside her and unzipping his trousers; and she recalled being in someone’s house.
The court heard the woman woke up in a house the next morning beside a man she did not know. She left immediately, sent a location pin to her friend from her phone and ordered a taxi. She immediately told her flatmate what had happened and went to gardaí. She was treated in a Sexual Assault Treatment Unit later that day, within 11 hours of the alleged assaults.
Toxicology reports showed the woman was “highly intoxicated at the time these events were happening”, prosecution counsel said.
The court heard investigating gardaí got CCTV from the nightclub, which showed the woman getting into a car rather than a taxi with three men. The car was registered to the 42-year-old accused, the court heard.
The accused men were identified and their homes were searched in December 2019. Their mobile phones were seized and gardaí found a WhatsApp conversation between the 39-year-old and the 34-year-old in which the older man asked his friend to “send me a clip of your one”.
The younger man replied: “Which one?” to which the other man replied with the name of the nightclub they had been in that night.
The younger man then sent two video clips, to which the older man responded: “Listen to you laughing after she says ‘No’.”
Prosecution counsel said the video clips were “not very clear” and were recorded on the 34-year-old man’s phone.
The three men were interviewed by gardaí by appointment in September 2020. They each described having sexual interactions of varying levels with the woman, but they said it was consensual.
The 39-year-old and the 42-year-old both said they had sex with the woman, while the 34-year-old man said his only sexual interaction with the woman was when she performed oral sex on him in the house.
DNA taken from inside the woman’s underwear was matched to the 34-year-old and the 39-year-old and, as a result, the prosecution alleges the youngest man also sexually assaulted the woman by performing oral sex on her.
The 39-year-old man, whose home the woman woke up in, told gardaí he kissed her goodbye at the front door the next morning before she got into a taxi. The other two said they left during the night.
When asked about the video, two of the men said the woman was saying “no” in relation to a request for anal sex, while another said she was saying “no” in relation to taking off her top.
“What this case boils down to is consent,” Mr Finnegan said, adding that it was up to the jury “to consider whether (the woman) was capable of consent given her level of intoxication”.
He brought the jury through the law in relation to consent, which states “a person does not consent if they are incapable because of the effect of alcohol or other drugs”. Mr Finnegan also cited legislation stating that if someone does not offer resistance “that does not constitute consent”.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Paul Burns and the jury.
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