Cork trial of two boys hears complainant didn't want others to know about alleged rape

Defendants — now aged 15 and 17 — are charged with raping and sexually assaulting the teenager at a St Stephen’s Day race meeting in Limerick

The trial continues at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork before Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of nine women and two men. File picture: Dan Linehan

WARNING: Some readers may find the following report upsetting

A 16-year-old girl who said she was raped in a car by a 13-year-old boy and a 15-year-old boy at Limerick Races told a friend the next day that she felt dirty and could not even look at herself in the mirror.

This witness said that in the moments after her friend was allegedly raped that afternoon the complainant was so upset and said she wanted no one to know.

The teenager said her friend had a dark sense of humour and that back at another friend’s house after the St Stephen’s Day 2022 race meeting, she joked — in what the witness regarded as a way of coping — as the friends sat in a bedroom.

“She was putting up her hand and saying, put your hand up if you’ve given head. Put your hand up if you ever had a threesome,” the witness said.

Recalling when she first knew of something being wrong, she said in relation to her friend, the complainant: “She called me on Snapchat at around half-four. I missed the first call but I rang her back. She was evidently upset. Just crying and incoherent. I could not really make sense of anything she was saying.”

The witness said that she and her friends and the complainant made the collective decision at the races that afternoon to say that if anyone asked about the complainant being upset they would pretend that it was because she had lost her phone.

“She did not want anyone knowing what happened,” the teenaged witness said when she gave evidence by video link to the courtroom.

Two jurors became ill on Tuesday, March 18, and the trial had to be adjourned at lunchtime that day. When the trial resumed on Wdnesday, Judge Paul McDermot said he was discharging one of the jurors who had become ill and that the trial would continue before a jury of 11 — nine women and two men.

Another witness who gave evidence today was Dr Aoife Fanning, a Sexual Assault Treatment Unit examiner, who examined the complainant. She described finding a bruise on each of the complainant’s breasts and a third bruise on her upper chest area near her left shoulder.

Two defendants — now aged 15 and 17 — are both charged with raping and sexually assaulting the teenager. A third boy is accused of aiding and abetting the first two defendants in carrying out these offences and he is also charged with falsely imprisoning the girl.

It is alleged that the contested incidents occurred in a car in a car park at Limerick racecourse at Patrickswell, Co Limerick, on December 26, 2023. All three accused have pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.

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