Garda did not take mobile phone for evidence, court hears

A garda sergeant has revealed she did not take the phone belonging to a Galway woman who alleges she was raped by a Czech national, because she assumed it would have no evidential value.

The sergeant said gardai also did not seize phones belonging to other people the complainant said she called between 1.45am and 2am on July 28, 2007 in a Co Galway town, at the time she alleges she was raped.

She agreed under cross-examination by defence counsel, Mr Diarmaid McGuinness (with Mr Francis Comerford BL), at the Central Criminal Court, that the only phone she seized belonged to the accused's Czech flatmate who had used his phone to make a video of the night's festivities inside the local pub.

She also agreed that the complainant said in her second garda statement that she was going to hand over her phone.

"I assumed there was no evidential value in the phone and I handed it back to her (the complainant) directly after her saying she was handing it over."

The sergeant said the 23-year-old accused told gardaí the complainant did not ask to have sex with him but that he knew she wanted to because she had approached him and kissed him outside the pub.

He said she told him she had seen him two months ago and thought he was "very hot" and had "very nice eyes". He was surprised she came up and kissed him outside the pub.

He said he told her they should both go back to his home but she did not want to because she said she had work the next morning.

He said he then left the area outside the pub and started walking in the direction of his flat with his flatmate and the flatmate's girlfriend but stopped when he heard the complainant call out to him.

He said he took five steps towards her and she came to him and started kissing him.

He denied in the "question and answer" interview that he led the complainant to an isolated spot and raped her against her car, saying that they both enjoyed the sex up until she said "wait, I can't" and started crying.

The accused told gardaí he was "traumatised" by the situation said he did not know what happened as he never experienced a girl to start crying during sex.

"When she started to cry, I stopped. It was the same time as when she said: 'I can't'."

He added that because the complainant was drunk or maybe had a boyfriend: "I think she didn't really care what she was doing but while we were doing the sexual act she came to her consciousness and realised what she was doing when she started crying."

He has pleaded not guilty to raping and sexually assaulting the 24-year-old woman on her parked car.

Prosecution counsel, Ms Mary Ellen Ring SC (with Ms Karen O'Connor BL), read out a garda forensics report which indicated there was no semen found on swabs taken from the complainant's body and samples of her clothing.

It was day-seven of the trial which continues before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury of eight men and four women.