Alleged rape victim denies hitting accused with bottle

An English woman who alleges she was raped in a Dublin hotel bathroom has denied at the Central Criminal Court that she hit the accused man with a wine bottle "in jealousy" because he was paying attention to her friend.

The woman denied a suggestion in cross examination by Mr Conor Devally SC (with Mr Paul Carroll BL), defending, that the accused had then struck her and subsequently wiped up her blood with a towel.

The 54-year-old English man, who can not be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty to rape, oral rape and sexual assault of the woman on March 20, 2007.

He has also pleaded not guilty to threatening to kill the woman and threatening her that he would kill her sleeping friend.

He has pleaded guilty to assaulting the woman causing her harm on the same occasion.

The woman agreed with Mr Devally that she had first encountered the accused man in a Templebar pub on the first full day of her short trip to Dublin but said she could not recollect which of them initiated the contact.

She told Mr Devally: "it's possible but I don't actually remember", when he suggested she had gone upstairs to join the accused man's company rather then him coming downstairs to join her and her friend at their table.

She denied that there was an "understanding" that he was going to accompany them back to their hotel room.

She did not agree with Mr Devally that it was misleading to suggest that they had agreed he could come back to the hotel room for the "prime" reason of helping them arrange the following days trip to the coast.

She denied that there was any "bickering" between her and her friend when they were trying to find their room.

The woman agreed that CCTV footage was "probably accurate" in recording that they returned to the hotel at about 11.15pm, got back to the room 15 minutes later and the next time the room was exited was two hours later.

She agreed she had told gardaí she was "not sure" if he had penetrated her vagina. She said she knew he had not ejaculated and she was "terrified" people would not believe her if there was no evidence.

The woman also denied a suggestion by Mr Devally that there any antagonism between herself and her friend because the accused, whom they had met earlier in a pub, was paying attention to one of them above the other.

She denied she had fallen asleep in the room and had "reacted poorly" when she awoke to find her friend and the accused together on a bed and that she had struck him twice with a wine bottle.

She denied that the accused had then struck her and afterwards wiped up her blood with a towel in the bathroom.

She told Mr Devally that the accused had asked for goodnight kiss as she was expecting him to leave after her friend fell asleep and that he had pushed her into the bathroom where she complied with his demands to undress after he assaulted her. She said he "did not scream or shout" his threats to kill her and her friend.

She said the accused had tried to "kill" her in the bathroom by covering her mouth after she got free briefly to attempt to alert her friend. She said she ran naked from the room after hearing her friend shout "get out now".

She told Mr Devally: "I was running for my life, I was traumatised, I just ran and ran, I don't know where I ran to."

She agreed that there was a photograph of her and the accused kissing "good night" taken on her friends camera in the pub. She said she did "not specifically recollect" if she had kissed the accused at any other time in the pub.

The trial continues before Mr Justice George Birmingham and a jury of five men and seven women.