A woman told a jury a man threatened to smother her when she tried to scream as he raped her in Donegal two years ago. The 23-year-old woman said the accused was the man who attacked her.
She was giving evidence to the Central Criminal Court on the first day of the trial of a 34-year-old Offaly man. He has pleaded not guilty to two charges of raping the woman in a car at Corkey, Manorcunnigham, Co Donegal, early on June 1st, 1995.
A jury of six women and six men has been sworn in.
Cross-examined by defence counsel Mr Blaise O'Carroll SC, the woman denied she had met the accused man at a nightclub in Letterkenny and went off in his car to have consensual sex with him. She denied a suggestion that her account of meeting a different "nice guy" at the disco was a figment of her imagination.
She told prosecuting counsel Mr Kenneth Mills she was a student in Letterkenny Regional Technical College at the time. She had gone with friends to the nightclub to celebrate the end of exams.
She said she met a man there who agreed to give her a lift home in his car but his friend, the accused, got in too. This man was to be dropped home first and the car was driven out on the Derry Road into the countryside.
The car stopped a second time and the driver walked away. The accused took over the driving and stopped in the driveway of a house, stripped off her clothes and raped her twice. At one stage he put his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream and threatened to smother her.
The trial continues.