A woman who was raped by three men she met in a nightclub has said she feels she has protected other women by giving evidence against the men.
39-year-old Anthony Hickey from Ballyogan in Carrickmines, 42-year-old Fabio Vicente from Enniskerry in Co Wicklow and Matin Zolfaghari, who is 34 and from Marley Court in Rathfarnham, were convicted earlier this year of raping the young woman in August 2019 and sentenced to terms of 15 and 13 years. All three convicted men have lodged appeals against their convictions and against their sentences.
The woman told RTÉ News that despite the intimidation she had faced in the courtroom and the men's lack of respect and remorse, she had used her voice to show them she would not accept what they had done.
Our Legal Affairs Correspondent, Órla O’Donnell spoke to the woman, who wants to be known as 'Kate'.
On 30 August, 2019, 'Kate' and some friends had a girls’ night out. One of the friends had just got engaged. So Kate and her housemate went to the pub for a few drinks and then bought a bottle of champagne to bring to their friend’s apartment. They then decided to go to a nightclub on Baggot Street.
Kate describes how they’d had a few drinks and were feeling drunk. But they were dancing and having fun. She was a young woman in her 20s, working hard in Dublin - at the weekend she loved fun and loved going out dancing. At around 1am, her housemate told her she was going home. Kate wanted to stay out - she knew other friends were out in town and she thought she might link in with them. Her friend left, and she says "the course of the night changed for me".
They had been talking to a group of men in the nightclub. Kate says they had had "very basic conversation" and a bit of a dance. After her friend left, she says her memory became very hazy and fragmented.
Kate later had to watch CCTV footage of her time in the nightclub in court. She says that while the focus was on her - how she moved, how she danced - she reminded herself that she had done nothing wrong.
She decided to focus on the three men who subsequently accompanied her as she left the club. She could see them "co-ordinating a plan". They were keeping a close eye on her, she says, and one was always watching her while one was going in and out of the nightclub, "sorting out transport" she believes. She was looking for her coat, but every time she went to find it, one of the men lured her back on the dancefloor.
Kate says this footage was really difficult to watch "knowing how dark the night ended" for her. She describes herself as innocent and naïve. All she wanted to do was have fun, she says, but the men robbed her of that.
Kate describes how she was internally screaming at herself as she watched the footage - shouting at herself to find her coat, to get out and get away - even though she knew what had happened.
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The jury at the Central Criminal Court saw Kate leaving the club in the company of Anthony Hickey, Fabio Vicente and Matin Zolfaghari. She was placed in the back of a car which had no seats in the back. One of the men removed his shirt as he approached the car.
Anthony Hickey orally raped and sexually assaulted her in the car. Vicente also raped her in the car. She was driven back to Hickey’s house in Dundrum where he and Vicente raped her and Zolfaghari orally raped her.
She says her memory continued to be hazy until she woke up in the morning with Hickey asleep beside her. She ran from the house and got a taxi home where she told her housemate what had happened.
Zolfaghari took videos of the woman which were played in court. In one, Kate could be heard saying "no" three times. Hickey asked him to share it on a WhatsApp group chat and commented "listen to you laughing after she says no".
Kate says she did not know about this video until after she had finished giving her evidence in the men’s trial. She describes this as probably the most upsetting part of her ordeal, to find out that it had happened without her consent, and that the men had laughed about her saying no.
"I always knew I didn’t consent," she says. She knew she had kicked out and pushed. But this was the first time she learned that she had actually vocalised the word no, several times. But "they continued to laugh and chose to do this to me anyway", she says, describing it as "dehumanising and humiliating".
Kate says she would not have reported the rapes at all were it not for the support of her housemate who immediately contacted the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre and the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit at the Rotunda Hospital. She waited for her appointment at SATU while still wearing the clothes she had gone out in - "feeling so dirty and so ashamed", she says.
Kate says one of the nurses in SATU was particularly helpful to her. "She was like a mammy," and told her she was "really strong" and could fight it.
Making a statement to gardaí where she had to recount every detail was difficult, she says. And the Covid-19 pandemic led to some delays in the process. But in February 2024, she got a call to say three men had been charged. She describes this as "really overwhelming". She felt "validated, angry, upset and anxious about what was to come".
There had been a lot of publicity about how difficult and retraumatising the court process was. Kate asked for a screen to be put around her while she was giving her evidence. This was to protect her mental health, she says. She had no memory of the men’s faces and didn’t want their faces to feature in the flashbacks she was suffering. She got the screen but it was pointless as she had to watch the CCTV and also had to see the men every day in court.
Kate says her husband tried to protect her but she would feel him tense up whenever one of the men was near. She describes the atmosphere in the courtroom as intimidating. The three men had many family members there to support them.
The nature of the case also led to what she perceived as unfairness. Because there were three defendants, she had to be cross-examined by three barristers for three days. As the jury was selected each side had seven vetos over the potential jurors. This meant the defence had a total of 21 vetos, and Kate says they challenged 19 women.
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She was then plunged back into the trauma of what happened, with people judging every move she made and every word she said. She knew what happened was wrong and although the experience was traumatic, she describes "clinking my armour" and fighting for herself.
When the guilty verdicts came, she says she collapsed. Her husband was sobbing and investigating gardaí became emotional. Kate pays tribute to the gardaí - they protected her in court and she will be forever indebted to them.
She describes the verdicts as "the one moment of light in the whole thing." She realised she had won - she had not only brought the men to justice, but had protected other women.
Kate says the men showed no remorse and stared over at her in court.
On the day of their sentencing, when she was due to give her victim impact evidence, the court was packed with supporters of the men. There was an air of "angry tension", which was really uncomfortable. The gardaí and barristers were unnerved and she wanted prosecuting lawyers to raise the issue with the judge.
However, she was relieved to find this was not necessary. When Mr Justice Paul Burns walked out, Kate says he took one look at the crowded courtroom and told the men they could each have two people with them and no more.
Kate says one of the most emotional moments in court was when Judge Burns acknowledged that what had happened was not her fault. The judge had sat through the whole case and had listened to everything suggested about her, she says, and his words meant a lot.
Kate says the rapes have affected everything in her life - her work, her confidence, how she views the world. She describes living in a heightened state of fear the whole time.
She says however, that going through the courts gave her a voice to say she was not going to accept what the men thought they could do to her or to anyone else. She says there is no question that there is an "epidemic of gender-based violence". This was not a case where the men did not realise that she was not consenting. "They knew I had said no over and over again," she says, "but they decided to ignore that for their own gratification".
She has since had a daughter who gives her a purpose, she says. She wants a better world for her. And she has a message for those men who have a similar world view to the three men who "used my body as if I was an object they were entitled to".
"It’s not acceptable," Kate says. And she points out that for years women have been made to feel like the problem, when the problem is the predators. However, she says good men, like those in her life, are part of the solution and need to call out other men’s behaviour and intervene when they see people in a vulnerable position.
She is expecting to have to endure appeals on behalf of the men. But she says the sentences imposed reflect the crimes they committed.
Kate says she is really proud of herself. She feels "really strong and brave".
"As awful as the process was," she says, "I would do it again to get them where they are".
She adds she is hopeful for the future and hopes her story will be an inspiration for others.
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