Former Naval Service member brings sex assault charge against crewman

A former member of the Defence Forces has claimed she was sexually assaulted by a crewman while they worked on board an Irish naval vessel berthed at Naval Service headquarters.

The woman told a Cork court yesterday that, while the ship was on patrol at sea, the accused approached her in the mess area twice — once to ask her for a blow job, and on another occasion, to go to a cabin for “a quick one”.

But she claimed that on a morning in Jun 2012, while she was on deck helping to refuel the ship at Haulbowline in Co Cork at the end of the patrol, the accused slapped her backside first, before grabbing her breasts.