Four men have appeared in court accused of raping and sexually assaulting a 19-year-old woman at her home five years ago, reports RTE.
The Central Criminal Court heard the woman’s testimony that she invited a man to her home, but he arrived with three others and was forced to engage in sexual and oral intercourse against her will.
Putting the case before the prosecution, senior counsel Anne Rowland told the jury that the complainant in the case was 19 years old in December 2018, reports RTE.
The rest of her family was out at night and she didn’t want to be home alone.
She invited her friend to stay, but he couldn’t. She then invited the accused, whom she knew through college friends and who had visited her home many times.
Ms Rowland said the jury would hear evidence that the first defendant drove his mother’s car that night and picked up three others from a Dublin shopping centre before driving to the woman’s home in a neighbouring county, arriving after 11pm, reports RTE.
Ms Rowland said the woman would say she was not expecting four. They had a few drinks on the ground floor of the house before going to her bedroom because it was cold downstairs, the jury was told.
Ms Rowland said the woman went to the bathroom and felt ill after drinking alcohol. When she returns to the bedroom, one of the men pulls down her pants and starts beating her, and the others join in. The woman testified that she felt pain and told them to stop.
Two people allegedly left the room and two stayed. The woman will say she was forced to have oral sex with one and sex with the other. The woman will testify that she went to the bathroom and was then dragged into another bedroom, where she was raped, reports RTE.
The court was told that the men left the house an hour and a half after arriving at the scene.
The woman contacted a friend who came to her home and contacted gardaí.
During the Garda investigation, the first accused initially told officers that he had been driving his father’s car that night and that although she knew the complainant and had always contacted him on Snapchat asking him to come to her house, this had not happened.
Gardaí recovered CCTV footage from the shopping centre and saw the accused driving another car, owned by his mother, before picking up three others and driving to the complainant’s house.
All four are accused of sexual assault. All four have denied all allegations.
The trial before Judge David Kane is expected to last four weeks, reports RTE.
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