Customer refused to stay with woman before alleged rape
The customer, an off-duty taxi driver, told the court that the alleged victim had returned from the toilet and said to him “will you wait, will you stay with me?”.
He told her he was not staying and told the Central Criminal Court that he felt that he had let her down by not bringing her home.
A 41-year-old Polish man has pleaded not guilty to four charges including rape, sexual assault, assault causing harm and robbing €120 from her in a Galway town on May 9, 2007.
A barman and customers from the pub testified that the complaint and accused had been drinking in the pub and had both been in the toilets at the same time for around 10 minutes.
The barman said the Polish man entered the pub with a Polish couple. After the couple left the bar the accused man stayed on and spoke to the woman for around 20 minutes.
The witness told Roger Sweetman SC, prosecuting, that the accused man left the bar just before midnight and the woman remained there for a further 10 minutes.
The woman earlier denied under cross-examination by Martin Giblin SC, defending, that she had a “romantic encounter” with the man in the toilet of the bar.
She agreed she talked with the accused after he asked her for a cigarette. He kissed her and put his hands down inside of her underwear but she said she told him to stop and called him “cheeky”.
The woman earlier said that the accused had forced his way into the toilet cubicle she was in, grabbed both her hands and said “please, please, five minutes of Polish music”. She said she managed to force him out of the way and bolt the door.
She told Mr Giblin that she had not told the bar manager what had happened because she didn’t want to make an issue of it.
She said she had been so traumatised she forgot to tell gardaí about what had happened in the bathroom.
The hearing continues before Mr Justice John Edwards and a jury of seven men and five women.
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