LAST UPDATE | 5 Jun

A YOUNG WOMAN who says she was raped in a car by a taxi driver has rejected his defence counsel’s suggestion that any sexual activity was consensual.

The man, who is in his early fifties, has pleaded not guilty to the rape and anal rape of this woman. He further denies a charge of rape in relation to another woman.

The accused man, who can’t be named for legal reasons, denies the allegations and says that any sexual encounter between him and both women was consensual.

The first complainant told Gerardine Small SC, prosecuting, today that she finished work on 25 June, 2022 around 10pm and after spotting some co-workers at a bar, she joined them.

She drank around five pints of cider during the night and agreed with counsel that she wasn’t used to drinking that amount.

She said she left the bar after final orders with two co-workers, but they got separated while walking as the city was very busy.

When asked by Ms Small, the woman said her memory “almost doesn’t exist” of her journey after this point, except that she went to a restaurant where she believed she slipped on some stairs.

The woman said her next memory was “waking up in that car” and she found herself sitting in the front passenger seat. She didn’t know what time it was and recalled seeing an ID card in the car.

She said there was a man driving the car very slowly “for a little while, until he stopped”.

She said she didn’t speak to the man and was “very dazed”. 

She described feeling “like when your eyes are really heavy and every time you close them, you lose consciousness for a second.”

She said the man climbed on top of her when the car stopped and pulled down her trousers. He then “tossed” her in the back seat, after picking her up like she “weighed nothing”.

She said the man got on top of her and raped her anally. She said she was caught by surprise as it as “very sudden” and “sore”. 

She said she was still drifting in and out of consciousness at this stage.

She said the man then raped her. When he finished, he pulled her clothes back. She said the man then got back into the driver’s seat.

She told Ms Small that she didn’t consent to any sexual interaction with the man and didn’t touch him.

She said the man dropped her off at a place she didn’t recognise, then she got back into the car and they drove a little more before he left her at a location she was familiar with. 

She described two “micro-conversations” with the man during which he asked her where to take her and she asked him where her bag was.  

She said she asked the man his name, but he didn’t tell her, replying that she would see him around.

She said she later found her bag on the steps outside her home.

She went home and went to bed as she had work the next day. She said she felt “awful” when she woke, sore and “drained” mentally.

She said she got the morning-after pill on her way to work.

The woman outlined in her evidence that later that day she separately told a work colleague and a friend that she had been raped.

Under cross-examination, the woman accepted that she probably got into the taxi voluntarily, but said she has no memory of this.

Defence senior counsel Lorcan Staines SC outlined his instructions are that the woman told the man to drive the taxi as she was looking for her bag. 

His instructions are that she and his client were chatting and getting on.  She said she didn’t remember this.

Mr Staines suggested that she was laughing and happy while chatting with the man, and the woman said it was possible, but she didn’t remember.

Defence counsel put it to the woman that there was kissing, then consensual sexual activity and mutual touching in which she played an active role, which she rejected.

He put it to her that his client instructs there was no anal sex. 

Mr Staines suggested that no force was used by his client and that both parties were engaged in the sexual activity. “No, I had no energy. I was blacking out the whole time,” she replied.

He later put to her that his client says he didn’t “throw you or use physical force”, which she also rejected.

In other evidence, the woman’s friend said she told her she was raped. The witness said her friend told her she “woke up underneath a man in a car,” and didn’t know who he was.

One of the woman’s colleagues said he had been at the bar with mutual friends and the woman, whom he thought was a little drunk. 

He said a mutual friend went to put the woman in a taxi, but returned saying they’d lost her before doing this.

He said he saw the woman at work the next day. She told him that she had a sore head from being out the night before and because she had to take the morning-after pill as “she’d been raped in a car the night before.”

He said he told her to go home as soon as she could after this.

Earlier today, Ms Small told the jury in her opening speech that the second woman was socialising with friends in Dublin on 9 August, 2022. 

She had been drinking, but was also very tired after getting up early for work.

She said the woman took a taxi and was falling in and out of sleep, but ultimately she woke to find the man on top of her, allegedly raping her. 

The woman was in shock and didn’t feel in a position to fight back.

She was taken to her parents’ home where the man asked for the fare, which was paid by her parents. The woman told her parents what had happened and the gardaí were contacted.

Ms Small told the jury that the accused man told gardaí that any sexual encounter between him and this woman was consensual and initiated by the complainant.

The trial continues.