Student welfare officer foils potential sexual assault in Cork

The Lough, Cork City, where a woman was seen being led forcibly away.

A student welfare officer believes he may have helped prevent a woman being raped.

Jason Fraser and a pal were in the Lough parkland area of Cork City when they spotted a young woman being led forcibly through the park.

They followed at a distance and on catching up with the man leading her away, they confronted him at the Hartland’s Ave end of the Lough and asked what was going on.

“It looked like a planned sexual assault, to me,” said Mr Fraser of the incident, which happened around 9.10pm on Saturday evening.

“I saw this man, just over six foot with ginger hair, sunglasses, and a black jacket, dragging this Asian girl across the Lough by the arm.

It just didn’t look right.

“He appeared to have taken the girl’s phone from her and at one point he was publicly urinating while a friend of his was with the girl.

“She didn’t seem to have very good English and seemed quite scared of the men.”

Mr Fraser, who is a student union welfare officer at University College Cork, said he saw them walk back into the park and, at one point, the girl grabbed her phone from one of the men’s back pockets and ran.

She ran into a private student accommodation block and in through a security gate before locking it behind her.

Mr Fraser later made an informal statement to gardaí.