A 32-year-old man has gone on trial at the Central Criminal Court charged with raping and assaulting a woman causing her harm in a Cork suburb in April 2002.
The man from Cork has pleaded not guilty to the charges arising out of offences alleged to have occurred between 10 p.m. on April 7th , 2002 and 2 a.m. on April 8th, 2002.
Opening the case to the jury of 10 men and two women, Mr Alexander Owens SC, prosecuting, said it would hear from the victim that she had just started walking home from a pub in the vicinity when she was attacked. "The next thing she knew, she was lying on the ground in the pitch dark," Mr Owens said.
She would say that as she lay on the ground the accused hit her on the face and half throttled her.
Mr Owens said she would tell the jury that he then raped her and she remained quiet throughout the ordeal because of the way he had hit her. She managed to escape after he raped her by climbing over the wall and running away across a laneway.
Mr Owens said the woman, who had been a student at the time of the alleged incident, had been in Cork city visiting her sister. She had gone out for lunch with her sister and two men and had been to a number of pubs on April 7th, 2002.
Counsel said the four people had gone to a pub near the location of the alleged incident to watch a band. She had just left the pub after watching the band when she was attacked.
The now 27-year-old woman is expected to give evidence before Mr Justice Paul Butler and the jury today.