A JURY HAS failed to agree verdicts in a rape trial involving three young men who say they had consensual sex with a teenage girl in a car six years ago.
It was the State’s case that the then-17 year old girl was raped in turn by each of the accused in a car at a hotel car park after going for a drive with them. The three defendants, who were aged 17 and 18, denied any wrongdoing.
After a three week trial at the Central Criminal Court and having deliberated for just over nine hours, the jury of six men and six women told Justice Melanie Greally today that it could not come to a verdict.
Justice Greally had instructed the jury yesterday afternoon that she could accept a majority verdict on which ten or more jurors agreed.
Shortly after 2pm this afternoon she told jurors that it was open to them to return verdicts of disagreed if they had each come to a final position on the charges and ten or more of them were not in agreement. About 15 minutes later the jury returned to the courtroom and returned verdicts of disagreed on all eight counts.
The first defendant (22) had pleaded not guilty to rape and sexual assault. A second defendant (23) had pleaded not guilty to rape, oral rape and two counts of sexual assault.
The third defendant (23) had pleaded not guilty to rape and oral rape. The offences are alleged to have occurred on December 20, 2017 at a hotel car park in the Leinster area when two of defendants were aged 17, one had just turned 18 and the complainant was aged 17.
Justice Greally adjourned the case for mention to April 28 next.
In her closing speech, prosecuting counsel Alice Fawsitt SC said that complainant’s evidence was that she said no to the defendant’s’ requests for sex and that they didn’t listen to her.
Fawsitt suggested the defendants thought the woman “was consenting to sex” once she got into the car, but the complainant believed they were going for a drive.
“Getting into a car with four lads is not consent to sex with one, two or three of them,” she said.
In their closing addresses, defence counsel suggested there were inconsistencies in the complainant’s evidence which affected her credibility as a witness.
In his closing speech Michael O’Higgins SC, defending the first defendant, said his client’s evidence wasn’t “if you don’t scream rape, there’s consent,” but “no means no”.
He told the jury there is a “particular set of circumstances” which “we say commences in a consensual way, unfolds in a particular way and it’s not rape”.
Garnet Orange SC, defending the second defendant, submitted that the prosecution’s case against his client had not been proven beyond reasonable doubt. He asked if it’s plausible that the woman was raped in succession by three men and didn’t try to get away.
Orange asked the jury to imagine themselves as “a 17-year-old girl who has possibly made a catastrophically bad decision”.
He suggested there is an “easy solution which wipes slate clean”.
Mark Nicholas SC, defending the third defendant, said it would be “unfair to distill” his client’s evidence to “if she doesn’t scream, it’s not rape”.
He suggested the woman didn’t take opportunities to be rescued because there was “nothing to be rescued from”.
Nicholas suggested the woman “regretted” events of that night, “but it wasn’t rape”.
Under the 1981 Rape Act anyone charged with a rape offence is entitled to anonymity unless and until they are convicted. The complainant remains at all times entitled to anonymity unless she chooses to waive this entitlement and nothing can be published that would identify her.
The trial had run at the Central Criminal Court since March.
Opening the trial, Alice Fawsitt SC, prosecuting, told the jury they were only being asked to consider the allegations made by the complainant about the three defendants.
The complainant said a friend asked her to go for a drive and expected they would go with her friend’s cousin. Her friend later told her they’d be going with boys her friend knew.
The woman said they hung out at a train station where her friend used the complainant’s phone to contact the boys. The woman said she heard her friend refuse a request for sex made during a call.
A car with four male passengers arrived after approximately two hours. The woman said she didn’t know the car’s occupants.
She said she didn’t want to go for a drive but got into the car as she didn’t want to leave her friend alone. They stopped during the journey and the second defendant collected another car.
After the car arrived at the hotel car park, the complainant said she was “scared” and got out.
She said the first defendant stopped her then kissed her. He put his hands down her trousers and touched her vagina.
The woman said she said no when he asked for sex and he took her to the car. She said she continued to say no but this defendant then attempted to have sex with her.
The complainant said the second defendant got into the car and asked for a threesome. She refused and he then used her hand to masturbate himself.
When the first defendant was finished, the woman said the second defendant had sex with her. The woman said she refused a request for oral sex, but did it as he kept asking.
The woman said she said no to the third defendant when he asked for oral sex, but did it as he was “getting more aggressive” in his requests. She said the third defendant had sex with her in the back seat of the car.
The woman said she went to a friend’s house after being dropped home. The complainant said she told this friend that she’d been out with people who “forced” her to have sex with them.
The woman said she didn’t make a complaint to gardai until December 27 because she was scared.
During her cross-examination, the woman re-iterated that she only got into the car to stay with her friend. She repeated her evidence that she said no to all three defendants. The woman said she didn’t see anyone else in the car park and would have shouted for help if she had.
The complainant agreed with Michael O’Higgins SC, for the first defendant, that her friend told her that she [the friend] had met the third defendant and another man a few days before December 20 and had sex with them.
O’Higgins said his client instructs that the woman agreed to go for a walk and she rejected this. The woman accepted the first defendant kissed her and said she “let him do it”.
O’Higgins asked the woman: “how is it you can stand up for yourself when answering questions, but did not say anything when [he] raped you?”.
“I said no,” the complainant replied. “The reason I can sit here and fight for myself is I’ve built myself a backbone.”
The complainant told Garnet Orange SC, representing the second defendant, that she became scared when two of the car’s male occupants argued about having sex with her friend during the journey to the car park.
Mark Nicholas SC, representing the third defendant, suggested to the woman that her friend was involved in this conversation about sex. The woman said there was a row, but added that she couldn’t remember what her friend may have said.
The woman said she didn’t think to go for help when the car stopped on the return journey.
Orange asked the woman if she spoke loudly when she said no to sex. She replied “I said no, I didn’t think I’d have to shout no”.
The first defendant gave evidence that he didn’t know the complainant before that night. He said there was talk about sex during the drive, but “no arguing”.
The first defendant said he asked the complainant to go for a chat. He said they kissed and it was “fully consensual”.
He said he put his hands down her pants, then asked her for sex.
The first defendant denied directing the woman towards the car.
O’Higgins put the complainant’s evidence to his client. The defendant said the woman didn’t communicate that she didn’t want sex, but was “worried” where it would happen “for her privacy”.
The first defendant said they attempted to have sex, but “ended up leaving it”. He said he refused the complainant’s offer of oral sex.
The accused said the second defendant was not in the car while he and the woman were engaged in “consensual sex”.
He said the second defendant came to the car window to ask for a threesome. The first defendant said he accepted the woman “wasn’t up” for this, but that “didn’t mean she wasn’t up for sex”.
He said he walked around the car park while the second defendant and the woman were in the car together.
Under cross-examination, the accused said he heard the complainant’s friend offer to have sex with the four men during a call with the third defendant earlier that evening.
Fawsitt suggested that the woman’s friend said no to a request for sex. The accused said this was “completely wrong”.
He also denied being the person whom a hotel security guard spoke with.
Fawsitt put it to the accused that he knew the complainant hadn’t consented to sex.
“I’m saying from my heart that she’s incorrect. There was no rape. Everything that happened was fully consensual. I’ve never raped anyone and never pressured [them]”.
The third defendant said he didn’t know the complainant before that night, but had met her friend. He denied there was a row during the journey to the hotel car park.
The accused said he went to the other car with the complainant’s friend and they had “consensual sex”. He then got back into the car and accepted the complainant’s offer of oral sex. The accused said the complainant suggested they have sex in the back of the car.
The defendant said he saw no signs of distress from the women on the trip home.
When cross-examined, the accused denied the second car was collected for the purpose of sex. He also denied speaking to a hotel security guard.
The accused said the complainant “never gave any signals to say ‘I’m just after being raped’”.
When asked if he was suggesting the woman made up the allegation, the third defendant replied “she has to be”.
“She showed no signs. Why wouldn’t she say no? She never once said anything,” he said.
In other evidence, a hotel security guard said he spoke with a man sitting in the driver’s seat of one of the cars. He said two other occupants of the car, a male and female, appeared to be engaged in sexual activity but he couldn’t see the woman’s face.
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