Friend of alleged rape victim heard ‘moaning’, court told

The friend of a student allegedly raped by two men has told a trial she heard the alleged victim moaning and saying the word “harder” during sex.

The complainant was a student at a college in Co Donegal in February 2015 when she says the two defendants raped her after a night of drinking.

In a trial at the Central Criminal Court, the men, who have a legal entitlement to anonymity, have pleaded not guilty to two counts of raping the woman.

The defendants are now aged 29 and 33 and the complainant is in her 20s.

The alleged rape happened after she and her female friend accepted a lift from two men at the end of a night out and ended up in an apartment. She earlier told the trial she was too drunk to consent to any sexual activity.

Giving evidence, the complainant’s friend told the jury they were both “very bad” in the way of intoxication, adding she thought the complainant “was worse”. She recalled being offered but declining a vodka drink.

She viewed some video taken of the complainant in the bathroom being lifted to her feet by two men. She said her next memory was helping her friend into bed and laying beside her.

“I remember I lay beside her and then all of a sudden the lights were off. I could have closed my eyes for a minute. Next I remember one of the guys was on top of [the complainant],” she said.

“I couldn’t tell [which one]. He was having sex with her. The other guy was on my side. He had his fingers up my dress and he was penetrating me...

“I remember [the complainant] saying ‘harder’. The guy beside me tried to put his penis inside me but I put my hands in front of myself and said: ‘No, no, no’.

“The guy on top of [the complainant] left the room and then the guy who had his hands up my dress went over to her and started having sex with her as well... I heard some moaning.”

‘Still drunk’

She said the next morning she woke up on the bed and one of the men was lying between her and the complainant.

“I was still drunk. We were both really confused, we didn’t know where we were. We were looking for her purse and her bag.”

She said they were chatting to the men and the complainant asked one of them for cannabis.

Under cross-examination she agreed that in the days after the incident she told gardaí that the complainant “seemed drunk, she seemed ok drunk, she didn’t seem that bad”.

“From the very start I underestimated how drunk we were. In hindsight, looking back on it all, not remembering things like coming out of the nightclub illustrates how drunk we were,” she said.

Earlier in the trial, the complainant told Barry White SC, defending, that she was given to talking in her sleep and “I have been known to moan and make noises in my sleep”.

The jury heard she told gardaí “I don’t know if I was moaning or not. I think I might have wanted him to go quicker so that it was over soon”. Counsel put it to her that this suggested “you were fully awake”.

“I was in and out of consciousness,” she said.

The trial continues.