Limerick racecourse rape trial told accused could not be found guilty beyond reasonable doubt

Defence senior counsel Brian McInerney represented the teenager who is charged with false imprisonment and aiding and abetting the other two boys. He referred to prosecution senior counsel, Dean Kelly’s assertion that if the defence version was true then the complainant is a monstrous liar. But Mr McInerney said: “I am not saying she is a liar, I am not saying she is a monstrous liar, it is not something (defendant) is saying.

“What I am suggesting, to put it bluntly, is she got into a car consensually, what happened in the car happened consensually and what happened, she regretted that. And when she got back to the races, things took a different turn — some element of regret — ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have done this’ or something of this nature. There was this trying to put a story together.

“They (complainant and friends) go back to the house, they go the bedroom, there is a suggestion they might all go to a house party.

“And there is a change because someone has said something to a parent, and her (complainant’s) parents are contacted and they arrive in the house,” Mr McInerney said.

He said there is then an examination by SATU in hospital and the teenaged girl is now with her mother and father and members of An Garda Síochána.

“What goes through the mind of a teenaged girl? ‘It can’t be anything I did’. What goes through the minds of the parents? ‘It can’t be anything you did. It had to be him, it had to be them.’ … The machine is now rolling forward. That is what is happening. Slightly in tandem with that the prosecution is running another element of the case — that she consented up to a point. It is not clear in the prosecution case what that point was.

“Was it in the racecourse to the car? Or was it to some of what happened in the car? Another plank of the case is that she was so drunk she could not consent. I cannot work out that she is sober enough to consent to something and so drunk she cannot consent to anything,” Mr McInerney said.

He said that from her own evidence the complainant said the driver did not engage and she said nothing against him. He said aiding and abetting or false imprisonment had not been established by the prosecution.

Tom Creed represented the defendant, who was 13 at the time and is 15 now, and charged with raping and sexually assaulting the girl. “This is not a case about monster liars or sexual predators — this is a case about children. Things have changed a lot since I was a child — how people engage with each other sexually at such a young age nowadays is difficult for me to comprehend even though I see and hear what is going on.

“She said she consented up to a point. What point? And you have the issue of the age of (defendant). He was 13 years old at the time. Here is a 13-year-old and they started with voluntary interchanges, according to her.” 

Mr Creed said the jury had to concern themselves with what the 13-year-old’s understanding was at the time of what was occurring in the car.

'A disgusting thing to do'

Vincent Heneghan, senior counsel for the second teenager accused of rape and sexual assault, said that his client did not want to get other boys in trouble and he suggested that some lying in his interview with gardaí was to protect others.

“We know he was in the car because he took the (15 seconds of ) videos. It is a disgusting thing to do, it is not a nice thing to do but he did it. It is not to his credit and he should be ashamed of it but that was done.

“Is there any reason why she was upset (when she returned to the racecourse pavilion)? Yes. She was aware she had been videoed which was despicable.

“(Later after going back to a friend’s house) she (the complainant) wants to attend a party. This is someone who claims they were raped and sexually assaulted. Is that the reaction of anyone (who was raped), irrespective of age?

“From 5.30pm to 8.30pm the word rape is never mentioned. Yes she is upset but she said she calmed down. The prosecution has not proved the case beyond reasonable doubt,” Mr Heneghan said.

The trial at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork continues.

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