Co Carlow restaurant co-worker denies sexual assault 

A MAN who works for a restaurant in Co Carlow last week denied in the local district court a charge of sexual assault after an incident occurred between himself and a co-worker. The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, denied sexually assaulting a supervisor (19) after he delivered goods to the restaurant in March of last year.

The alleged injured party gave evidence that the man, who was in his 30s, was bringing stock into the restaurant and asked her to help him bring it into a stockroom upstairs. She said that when they were in the stockroom, the man said he really liked her and made a comment about her having a nice body, to which she jokingly replied, “Thanks, I built it myself”.

The court heard that she told him that he had a family and that she had a boyfriend and that nothing was going to happen between them. The woman also told Judge Geraldine Carthy that text messages were previously exchanged between her and the man, in which he asked her to go out socialising with him but she refused, while also saying that the texts weren’t “flirty”.

She continued that in the storeroom he put his hands on her waist and kissed her neck from behind before turning her around and kissing her on the mouth and touching her breasts. She said that he also mentioned about giving him oral sex and she said no.

The woman said that she was in shock because she had been sexually assaulted before by someone else. She said that she went back downstairs and made the man some food because he’d asked her and because she was still on duty. She continued that she got upset and one of her colleagues asked her why she was upset and that the alleged assailant apologised, saying that he hadn’t meant to hurt her.

The court heard that, after that, she phoned her boss, who told her to go home.

Replying to a question from Inspector Tom Jones, the woman said that she had not consented to any form of physical contact with the man.

Under cross-examination by solicitor Joe Farrell about the text messages on her phone, the woman said that she handed her phone over to the gardaí when she made a statement later that day.

The court heard that the woman later quit her job because she didn’t feel supported by her employers and that the man was immediately let go when the allegation was made against him.

A witness who was working in the restaurant at the time of the incident said that the alleged injured party came into the kitchen and got very upset and that the alleged assailant got down on his knees and apologised.

The operations manager of the company gave evidence about the CCTV in the stockroom, saying that when he looked at it, it was flickering and wasn’t very clear. An investigating garda told the judge that it was “very difficult” to get the CCTV footage from the company and that the gardaí hadn’t received it because, when he went to get it from the company, it was gone.

When Mr Farrell submitted to Judge Carthy that it was up to the state to ensure it gets the best evidence available and that it hadn’t retrieved either the CCTV footage or the text messages from the phones of the alleged injured party and assailant, she replied that the gardaí had tried their best to get them.

A statement from the alleged assailant was read out in court while he also gave direct evidence from the witness box.

He said that the physical contact between the two of them in the storeroom started when they put their arms around each other’s waists and that she had not said anything in protest when he put his hands on her breasts.

He said that she did not say anything, either yes or no, and that he was “shocked” that she got upset. He also told Judge Carthy that he did not have the text messages of the previous exchanges between them because his phone had been hacked.

When Judge Carthy put it to the defendant that the woman had told him that nothing would happen between them because he was married and she had a boyfriend, he denied that she said that to him.

Mr Farrell submitted to the court that there was no evidence of what really happened in the storeroom because there was no CCTV footage and there was no evidence about what was said beforehand in the text exchanges between the pair. He said that the crux of the case was about consent and that there were essentially two different versions of the same incident, and that it was one’s word against the other’s.

Judge Carthy adjourned finalisation until tomorrow, Wednesday 12 February, so that she could thoroughly consider the evidence.