I only kissed alleged victim, says rape accused

A man accused of raping a woman in a Dublin hotel told gardaí in interview that he could not get his "head around" why she and her friend would make up the allegation but suggested it was because he had assaulted her.

Detective Sergeant Mark Kavanagh told Ms Pauline Walley SC, prosecuting (with Ms Mary Rose Gearty BL), that when the accused was asked why gardaí found him hiding in a linen closet, he replied that he could not find his way out of the hotel and had fallen asleep there.

"The officers who found me will tell you that I was asleep," he told gardaí.

Det Sgt Kavanagh told the Central Criminal Court jury that the accused denied having sex with either of the women that night but admitted that he had kissed the complainant.

"There is no way I had sex with her, the only bodily fluid we exchanged was when we kissed", he told gardaí before he also denied that he had forced the woman to perform oral sex.

He said the women had invited him back to the hotel with them but he had gone there with no intentions. He was just in a party mood, they had had a good day together and he was not looking for sexual favours.

The 54-year-old English man who cannot be named for legal reasons has pleaded not guilty to rape, oral rape and sexual assault of the woman, whom he had met earlier that night in a pub, 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 accused denied that he had suddenly hit the complainant when she was standing at the door saying goodbye to him and that he had forced her into the bathroom after telling her that he was the one in control.

He told gardaí that he had never threatened to kill her but then retracted the answer and said that he may have said he would kill her after she hit him with a wine bottle. He also denied that he had forced her to take off all her clothes in the bathroom.

When told by gardaí that his account of their encounter was not consistent with the injuries the complainant sustained, the accused replied that he had hit the woman twice, once to the nose which he suggested could have caused her black eyes.

The accused said during interview that he, the complainant and her friend had brought wine back to the women's hotel room before all three got undressed to their underwear and the complainant fell asleep.

He said the woman then then woke up and when she saw him and her friend sitting on a bed watching television she asked them should she leave the room.

Her friend replied that they had only been watching television but the accused claimed that the complainant struck him on the leg with a bottle of wine. He retaliated and hit her with an open hand in the face causing her to fall back.

He told gardaí that he then went into the bathroom to put on his jeans but the complainant followed him in and struck him on the back of the head with the wine bottle.

The accused said he "saw red" and punched the complainant in the nose. She started bleeding and he grabbed her by the hand and took her her into the bathroom where he cleaned her face.

He said her friend came in to help her and he told them both that he was sorry and that it should never have happened before he left the hotel room. He then went into the linen cupboard where he hit his leg off a bucket.

The accused told gardaí that the complainant's friend took off her clothes first and he was sitting on the bed with the complainant when they both undressed to their underwear.

He told gardaí that if the complainant had stated that it was her friend that had been asleep and not her, she was mistaken.