A separated mother of three has claimed she was raped in an isolated rural area by a man she had met at a disco.
The 47-year old man, from Co Louth, has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to two charges of rape and sexual assault on January 3rd, 1998. The alleged victim, aged 43, told Mr Michael Durack SC (with Roderick O'Hanlon) prosecuting, that she met the defendant at a Drogheda disco. They chatted, drank and danced together and the question of sexual intercourse arose. She told the accused: "I don't do that. I don't do that."
At the end of the night they met, she said, and she found him friendly. They took a taxi from outside the club to his car, which was seven miles away. They drove in the Collon direction and the defendant stopped at a gateway in a dark misty country area. They were kissing when she very suddenly found herself in an inclined position.
She thumped him around the shoulder area and bit his chin.
He demanded she return the cigarettes he had bought her, she said. Mr Durack noted she had stated to gardai that he had in fact entered her. "I'm not sure how much he entered me or if he did enter me, but he did give it a damn good try," she said.
She denied the claim made by the defendant that she had consented to intercourse. Mr Padraic O'Higgins SC, defending, put it to her that she was not at all clear whether the defendant had entered her. She replied that "he would have slightly entered me".
He put it to her that she had told a second taxi driver that she had "practically" been raped and he "tried it on". She replied that she had been very confused and had felt dirty and her tights had been ripped.
Mr O'Higgins asked her why she would accept a seven-mile lift with a man who had only one thing on his mind. "I thought he was genuine. I do regret that decision now," she said.
She accepted that the first taxi went nearby or past her home and she could have asked to be let out.
A doctor who examined the alleged victim on the night agreed with Mr Durack there was no evidence to show force had been used.
The trial continues.