A student woke up from a dream that she was kissing a man to discover that she was being raped, a court heard yesterday.
At the Central Criminal Court, currently sitting in Limerick, the 27-year-old man is charged with raping the 25-year-old woman at a house in Castletroy, Limerick city on November 17th, 2000.
Yesterday a jury of nine men and three women heard that the alleged victim was a student at the University of Limerick at the time of the alleged rape. She had completed a 10km run for charity earlier that day and had gone out and drank four pints of Budweiser before returning home ahead of her friends.
When called to give evidence she said she went home early because she was very tired and went to bed shortly after 11 p.m. She woke up at 3 a.m to find a man lying on top of her, having sexual intercourse with her. "When I realised what was happening I tried to push him off and I said I had to go to the toilet," she added.
She denied to defence counsel, Mr Brendan Nix, that she had consented to sexual intercourse with the man whom the court heard she had met on three separate occasions prior to the alleged rape. She told the court that she had never been romantically involved with the accused and denied that she had invited him into her bed.
The jury heard the accused, who is denying the charge, told gardaí that he was in the woman's bed but that she had consented to sexual intercourse. The trial continues today before Mr Justice Paul Carney.