Barrister in juvenile rape case says complainant got into car consensually and regretted what occurred

Olivia Kelleher

A barrister defending a boy accused of aiding and abetting two teenagers who are charged with raping a girl, has said in his closing speech that the complainant “got in to a car consensually, what happened in the car happened consensually” and she “regretted that.”

During the course of her evidence at a sitting of the Central Criminal Court in Cork the girl, who was sixteen when she was allegedly raped by two boys aged 13 and 15 in 2022, said that at no time did she consent to have sex with the young men.

The student was allegedly raped and sexually assaulted in a car at Limerick race course in Patrickswell, Co Limerick on December 26th, 2022.

Brian McInerney SC, defending a 17-year-old boy who is charged with false imprisonment and aiding and abetting the other boys, said that he wasn’t suggesting that the girl was a liar.

He said that what he was suggesting was that when the girl left the car in the car park at the races and returned to her friends “things took a different turn.”

“Some element of regret. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have done this’ or something of this nature. They (the complainant and her friend) go back to the house. There is a suggestion they might all go to a house party. There is a change, somehow. Somebody has said something to a parent and her (the complainants) parents are contacted and they arrive.”

Mr McInerney said that the girl was taken to a sexual assault treatment unit.

“What goes through the mind of a teenaged girl? 'It can’t be anything I did. ' What goes through the mind of the parents? 'It can’t be anything you did.' It has to be him. It has to be them. The machine is rolling forward.”

Mr McInerney said that the prosecution claim was that the girl “consented up to a point.”

“It is not entirely clear in the prosecution case what the point is. 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 that she couldn’t consent anyway. I can’t quite work that out. She was sober enough to consent to something and so drunk she cannot consent to anything at the same time.”

Mr McInerney told the jury that at no point did the girl say that his client had locked her in the car or prevented her from leaving the vehicle. He said that the mere presence of his client in the car was not enough to convict him of aiding and abetting and false imprisonment. The boy was 15 at the time of the alleged offence.

Meanwhile, Tom Creed, SC, who is representing the teenager accused of rape and sexual assault, who was 13 at the time of the alleged offence, said the case wasn’t about “monstrous 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?”

Mr Creed said that the onus was on the jurors to forensically analyse and scrutinise the evidence against the three accused on a completely separate basis.

Meanwhile, Dean Kelly, SC for the Prosecution, said in his closing speech on Tuesday that the boys were cackling, laughing and encouraging each other as they acted as a group in the car.

He said that the three co-accused wanted the jury to believe that the complainant was “a nasty, evil, mendacious liar.” He said the account of the boys was that within moments of entering the car the girl was “in total control of an orgy.”

Mr Kelly said that the reality was that the boys took “what they wanted from her (the complainant) physically and sexually whether she wanted to or not.”

The case will continue on Thursday in front of Mr Justice Paul McDermott and the jury.

If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie/services/helpline/ or visit Rape Crisis Help.