A Dublin woman has accused two men of pinning her down and sexually assaulting her after she accepted a lift. Two Indian men have pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to sexually assaulting the woman, falsely imprisoning her and assaulting her causing actual bodily harm at an unknown place in Dublin on July 12th, 1997.
The woman told Mr Michael O'Higgins, prosecuting, that she and a friend had tried to get a taxi at 1 a.m., following a party in the city centre. A white van pulled up and they got in with the two defendants. Her friend was dropped at an address south of the Liffey.
The men then offered to bring her to her home in another part of the city. She agreed, but they drove away from her address.
The two men started speaking in their own language and she became nervous. She made eye contact with a couple in Dun Laoghaire but the van continued before she could be rescued. They stopped at a housing estate and the driver began sexually assaulting her. The passenger also assaulted her. She saw the driver fumbling with his belt and believed she was going to be raped.
An argument broke out between the two men in their language. She thought the passenger was telling the driver that he was going too far. She was then dropped to her home and she contacted the gardai later. Cross-examined by Mr Ciaran O'Loughlin SC, for one of the defendants, she said it was possible that she had nine pints of lager on the night. She was merry but not intoxicated.
She could not remember from where she and her friend tried to call a taxi and accepted that it might have been because she had too much to drink. She could not remember which of the two men talked first and said that earlier statements referring to the passenger and the driver of the van were uncertain. "I knew them as the tall one and the small one, I can easily point them out to you," she said.
When it was suggested she had made up a statement that a man tried to assist her in Dun Laoghaire after she made eye contact with a couple in nearby car, she replied: "Who was he, a ghost?
"Of course there was a guy there, he came towards the van and the van took off." She denied that any kissing or cuddling had occurred with the two men or that she had put her hand between Mr O'Loughlin's client's legs. "Never in my life, and never would I be with two men at the same time. I'm not like that but that is what you are trying to imply."
Pressed by counsel for the second defendant, she denied giving consent to some of the sex acts involved. "Who would consent to being bitten on the breast and cut or to being bruised?" She went to the gym the next day, but did not realise the seriousness of the assault until told so by a friend. The trial continues.