Rape trial hears of ‘help me’, ‘I’m hurt badly’ text messages
Text messages with the words “Help me” and “I’m hurt badly” were sent at around 5am to friends of a woman who was allegedly raped by a man and physically assaulted by his friends.
The defence called only one witness — a friend of the accused who was present in the bedroom of the B&B in the early hours of March 18, 2017 — and he testified today that his impression was that the sex between the accused and complainant was consensual.
He said he was in a bed and the defendant and complainant were having sex on the floor between two beds. He said he could hear her moaning and also said she was not resisting. He said another woman present in the room at the time said to him: “Do you think you are watching porn?”
This young man was the only witness called by the defence at the Central Criminal Court, where the defendant who is now aged 18 denies the single count of raping the woman, who was aged around 20 at the time of the disputed incident on March 18, 2017, at a B&B in Kerry.
In a memo of interview with gardaí, the accused said they did have sexual intercourse but that it was consensual.
The defendant’s friend also said in the course of his evidence the woman was assaulted by others in the room, not including the defendant, but he said the reason for the assault was she and the defendant were in a bed and someone who had paid to stay in the room felt he should have a bed to sleep on.
The complainant said she was assaulted after she was told she should get with the defendant and that when she refused there was a row about whether or not he was good enough for her.
The defence witness testified that one of the men (there was a total of five men and three women in the bedroom which had one single and one double bed) said: “Look I paid for it, I should be entitled to the bed.
She hopped up and said: ‘Don’t be roaring and shouting’. She was a little bit angry. [Woman’s name] said [to complainant]: ‘Don’t be shouting at him.’
The witness said the two women went for one another then but the other woman got the better of the complainant and gave her a bad beating.
He said that he and the defendant “brought her to the toilet for safety”. But he said the three other men in the room assaulted her, and he saw her being elbowed in the head, kicked, and being stamped on her head but he said this was not serious stamping.
Some of this was physical assault was video recorded by one of the women present in the room.
Alice Fawsitt, prosecuting, said that the taxi driver who brought the complainant back from this B&B to the B&B where she and her friends were staying at around 5.30am, described her being very shaken and upset. The defence witness said he saw her leaving the room and she was not upset when she was leaving.
Detective Garda Pádraig Doyle gave evidence of several texts being sent from the complainant’s phone to her two friends, who were in the other B&B, in a period of minutes around 5am.
Those texts included the messages “Help me”, “Help meee”, “I’m hurt badly”, “Girlsss”, “I need you”, “I need ye”, and “I’m hurt.” Closing speeches in the trial will be delivered tomorrow in the case being heard by Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of seven men and five women.
