Suspect arrested following hotel security footage

A north Dublin businessman became the prime suspect for a Killarney hotel alleged rape of a foreign tourist after a garda observed hotel security footage images which fitted the woman's description of her attacker.

Garda Michelle Roche said she arrested the man after seeing him sitting in Killarney garda station and noting he was the man she had observed on the hotel CCTV footage. A pair of underwear was also found in his suitcase.

Ms Jackie Ryan, a receptionist at the hotel, also described to the Central Criminal Court how the complainant arrived at reception in a distressed state and said she had been attacked and raped in her room. Witness contacted the hotel's head of security and gardaí were alerted.

Ms Ryan agreed, during cross-examination by defence counsel, Mr Anthony Sammon SC (with Mr Michael Bowman BL, inst by Mr Padraig J O'Connell, Solc) that the woman said nothing to her about anal or oral rape.

They were giving evidence at the trial of the 39-year-old accused who denies one count each of rape, oral rape, anal rape and sex assault of the tourist in a Killarney hotel on June 6, 2005.

Gda Roche told prosecuting counsel, Mr Paul Burns SC (with Mr Tom Rice BL), that when she met the complainant in her room she was shaking and very distressed and it took her a while to compose herself to speak to her. The woman then gave a description of the man she said had attacked her.

Gda Roche said the complainant gave a history of a man knocking twice at her door but she agreed with Mr Sammon that she didn't have that point written down in her official notebook.

She said the woman told her that this man forced his way into her room, slapped her hard on her backside and anally raped her. The woman also said that the man ordered her not to look at him and demanded to know where she kept her underwear. She said he then went to her case and took out some underpants.

Gda Roche said she observed on the hotel's CCTV security footage a man entering and exiting the hotel who fitted the description the woman gave. She got a still photograph from the footage security of this man and patrolled Killarney up to 4am looking for him but without success.

She got a call on her mobile phone at 8am and went to Killarney garda station where she observed a man sitting there whom she recognised as the man she had seen on the CCTV footage. She arrested him at 8.20am on suspicion of having raped the complainant.

Gda Roche said the accused agreed to give gardaí his clothes for checking as evidence. A pair of female underwear was found in his suitcase and he signed notes in a garda notebook of his replies made to questions.

The accused who had come voluntarily to the station was then questioned by her and a colleague in an electronically-recorded interview and also signed these interview notes.

He told gardaí he drank a bottle of red wine with his dinner and later drank some pints before going for a walk to clear his head. He said he walked up from his hotel and outside the complainant's hotel he met a woman he thought was in her late 40s.

He said she linked his left arm, "stuffed something" into left pocket and said he should come up to her room in a minute. He discovered she had stuffed a pair of knickers into his pocket. She had given him a room number and had told him she wasn't wearing knickers.

The accused told gardaí he thought about her invitation for a few minutes and then followed her into the hotel.

"I knew what was being offered and said I would," he said.

Replying to further garda questions, the accused said the woman kissed him when he knocked on her room door and he described consensual sexual activity he claims that followed with both of them naked.

This included sexual intercourse "doggy-style", which he said got him "turned on", as well as buttocks-slapping but she became "irate" when he slapped her hard about six or seven times and she ordered him to stop.

He said the woman began shouting at him in an agitated way, saying her husband was returning to the room.

He said he dressed and left and that the woman also pulled on her top-clothes.

Dr Mary Murphy told Mr Burns the woman was crying and in a very distressed state when examined.

She had red bruising on her buttocks and some scratch marks. The bruising was very tender to the touch. Her internal examination revealed consistencies with her history of having being raped.

Dr Murphy agreed with Mr Sammon that she found nothing to indicate the woman had been slapped across the face. The woman had claimed her attacker slapped her across the face but her examination was carried out some three hours after the alleged incident.

Mr Sammon suggested to Dr Murphy that her evidence on this issue was an attempt "to soft-soap" the jury as a cover-up for her failure to examine the woman's face.

The hearing continues before Mr Justice Paul Carney and a jury of four women and eight men.