‘Sexting should not damage credibility’

Just because a woman engages in ‘sexting’, her credibility in making a complaint to gardaí should not be damaged, the jury in a trial of man charged with sexual assaulting a mother of two has been told.

However, following one hour and 48 minutes of deliberations, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty in the trial of a 35-year-old man who had denied two counts of sexual assault on his former partner and the mother of his child at her home three years ago.

John O’Sullivan, prosecuting, asked the jury to consider the shock Jane Austen would have “if she walked in to a bookshop and saw 50 Shades of Grey — but such is the change in society that we have today”.