A hypnotist has gone on trial charged with sexually assaulting two women who took part in one of his shows in 1997. The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has denied the women's claims that he sexually assaulted them by caressing their breasts in an hotel corridor.
Trim Circuit Court heard the first complainant describe the show she went to with her boyfriend and another couple. She was one of a number of people from the audience who were hypnotised. At the close of the show, the accused told the participants they were missing an important part of their body and to go out into the audience and look for it.
The witness said the hypnotist called her over and asked her what was the matter. She told him she was looking for her breasts and he said to wait a few minutes.
The woman said the hypnotist had brought her into the residents' section of the hotel and got her to lie down on a corridor floor. She said he caressed her breasts and she had no control to stop it.
She claims the hypnotist told her she would not remember anything from the show or what happened. They went back into the reception area of the hotel and she told her boyfriend what had happened.
Defence counsel, Mr Adrian Hardiman SC, said the accused had tried to calm her down.
He said the defence evidence would be that people liable to hypnosis are open to suggestion and are not reliable. He said her memory was distorted and not reliable.
The second woman also alleged that when she told the hypnotist she was looking for her breasts he took her to a corridor and caressed her breasts through her clothes. She said he stopped when a nearby door squeaked.
Dr Ivor Browne, a psychiatrist, gave evidence for the defence and said hypnosis was an altered state of consciousness and it was possible to suggest to people (under hypnosis) recollections or experiences that never happened. He agreed with prosecution counsel, Mr Jonathan Kilfeather, that it was used to cause people to remember things they had suppressed.
The trial continues.