A Tipperary woman was "very nearly murdered" during a frenzied and violent rape three years ago, a doctor told a jury at the Central Criminal Court yesterday. Earlier, witnesses who were near the scene of the attack described hearing a sound like the "wail of a banshee". They were frightened but did not see anything. They heard news of the assault the next day.
The victim's doctor told Ms Maureen Clark, defending, that no mercy had been shown to the 25-year-old woman who was attacked as she was walking to her home after midnight on September 4th-5th, 1994. "She was very nearly murdered and is lucky to be alive," the doctor told Ms Clark.
The doctor was giving evidence in the trial of a 23-year-old man who denies charges of raping the woman, assaulting her and attempting to choke her with intent to enable him to rape her.
The doctor said the woman was extremely distressed when she examined her short time after the incident. Her face was covered in blood from her nose and she had soiled herself. She also vomited in the doctor's surgery. She had pinpoint marks to her neck which were consistent with an attempt to choke her. The back of her lower limbs and her buttocks had gravel on them, indicating she had been on the ground.
A sergeant told Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, prosecuting, that he spoke to the woman and she gave him an account of what had happened. She gave a description which he thought matched that of the accused. He went to the man's house about 6.40 a.m.
The accused said he had been out in a pub and had arrived home between 12.15 and 12.20 a.m. He agreed to hand over the clothes he was wearing and to go voluntarily to the Garda station. The accused told gardai that he walked home and added: "I didn't see any girl, on my mother's life. If she was there I would have seen her."