Woman tells court she was raped after she told man she wanted to end relationship

A Dublin mother has told a Central Criminal Court jury that she was raped by a man she had been dating after she had told him she didn't want the relationship to continue.

She said the accused called to her home the morning after she had broken up with him and begged her not to end the relationship before he picked her up, carried her to her bedroom and raped her.

She said during the attack she was panicking and couldn't breathe because she was struggling so much.

"I thought I was going to die if I didn't stop struggling with him," she told prosecuting counsel Mr Conor Devally SC (with Ms Caroline Biggs BL).

The 38-year-old west Dublin man has pleaded not guilty to raping the woman at her home on September 9, 2004.

The complainant said that, after the rape, the accused lay on top of her for about two minutes but she said it felt like a lifetime.

He then got up, got dressed, sat down on the bed beside her and told her: "It's over now, I'll wait with you until the gardaí arrive."

He left her house but came back a few minutes later and kept knocking at her door while she called some friends and asked for assistance.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Roderick Murphy and a jury of four women and eight men.