Friend of rape accused said he watched for up to 20 seconds, and says events were 'consensual'
A friend of the teenager on trial for rape testified that he was watching what was happening in the bedroom and he was “one million percent certain” the complainant was not putting up resistance and that what happened was consensual.
The accused did not give evidence. This friend who was present in the B&B bedroom in Killarney on the night was the only witness called by the defence.
The defendant pleaded not guilty to charges of rape and attempted anal rape at the Central Criminal Court in Cork. He is now 17 and denies both charges which relate to alleged events at an address in Killarney on St Patrick's Day in 2017. He was 15 and the complainant was 19.
The jury of seven women and five men will hear the closing of Mr Justice Paul McDermott’s address to them tomorrow before they commence their deliberations.
The friend of the accused said that all of the men and women in the room that night knew each other, except for the complainant whom they met on the night.
He testified that he arrived back in the B&B to see the defendant and complainant on one of the beds in the room. One of the men with him told the two of them to get out of the bed believing he should be given the bed as he had paid for the room. “He called her names and said to get out of the bed. She did not like that. She hopped up and said she did not like it. (The woman with the man arriving in the room) said, ‘Are you getting smart?’
"The two of them (complainant and this woman) went for each other. She overpowered her (the complainant) punching her, pulling her hair, kicking her and biting her. I tried to intervene to stop her. It was a bad beating she was getting,” the witness said.
He said the defendant also intervened to protect the complainant. A third woman present in the room videoed the assault on her mobile phone. He said another man present in the room asked the witness why he was being blamed for assaulting the young woman. He said that man claimed he had done nothing and then kicked the young woman in the head.
Prosecution senior counsel Alice Fawsitt put it to the witness that he had said in his statement to gardaí that one of the men in the room said to the defendant in the B&B that night, “Why don’t you throw her on the ground and ‘feek’ her?” and that the girl did not like that comment.
Ms Fawsitt put it to the witness, “Was everyone in the room trying to facilitate (defendant) to have sex with (complainant)?”
He replied: “No one was facilitating him.”
He said a bed was made up on the floor between two actual beds and he said the defendant and complainant had consensual sex there. The witness said he watched them from the bed for up to 20 seconds. Ms Fawsitt said one of the women in the room said to the witness: “Do you think you are watching porn?” He replied that this might have happened.
