Man’s house raided over false rape claim

A Czech national living in Killarney, Co Kerry, who wore a green hoodie on the night of the 2014 All-Ireland football final, was identified by gardaí as the chief suspect in an enquiry in which a 26-year-old woman claimed she was violently raped and gave a detailed description of her “foreign, tanned-skinned” attacker who spoke English with a foreign accent.

Jacinta O’Connor, aged 26, went to Killarney Garda Station at 4am on September 22 after a night out and said she was grabbed and pulled to the ground and violently raped behind the town’s courthouse. She claimed she was then followed by the “Pakastani”-looking man who wore a green hoodie.

The next day, she made a lengthy formal statement. However, mid-way through viewing CCTV images on October 10, Ms O’Connor withdrew her statement after she was shown leaving the Grand Hotel nightclub shortly after 2am with an Irishman with whom she had had a sexual relationship. She told gardaí she was sorry. She had had consensual sex and had not been raped by a man in the green hoodie.