Man on trial charged with attempting to rape woman outside her Dublin apartment

A man has gone on trial at the Central Criminal Court charged with attempting to rape a woman as she tried to get into her city centre apartment.

The 34-year-old Dublin resident denies attacking the woman late at night on December 18, 2010.

Neither the accused nor the complainant can be identified during the trial.

Anne Rowland SC, prosecuting, told the jury of three women and nine men that at around 2am that night the woman was making her way home after a night out socialising in Dublin.

Counsel said the woman, who had lived in Dublin for many years, was opening the security gate into the courtyard of her apartment block when a man came up behind her.

This man entered in with her and knocked her to the ground and began to choke her by putting his hands around her neck. He punched her twice in the face and told her to shut up, counsel told the jurors.

The State's case is that the man then sexually assaulted her before attempting to rape her.

The man then left the scene.

When gardaí came to the scene they took the clothes the woman was wearing, Ms Rowland said. These clothes were forensically examined and a DNA profile was lifted from semen traces found on them, she said.

The defendant was arrested in 2016 and gardaí took an oral swab from him and generated a DNA profile from him which matched the DNA profile from 2010, counsel alleged.

Ms Rowland told the jury it is the prosecution case that the defendant is the person who ejaculated on the complainant's skirt.

The jury were shown photographs depicting the woman's injuries. The court heard these images showed bruising around the eye, swelling to side of the face and jaw area and bruising to the top of the lips.

The man has pleaded not guilty to attempted rape, sexual assault and assault causing harm at a place in Dublin on December 18, 2010. The trial continues before Mr Justice Micheal White and the jury.