A woman has described how she felt paralysed and her "body and mind went into autopilot" as she was allegedly raped and sexually assaulted by five men.
The woman, who was 17 at the time of the alleged offences, said she was "frozen" and in shock at the time.
She was giving evidence in the trial of four men accused of rape and sexual assault.
Three are also charged with false imprisonment. All four deny the charges. A fifth man is not before the court.
On the fourth day of the trial, the woman said she made what she described a "stupid snap decision" to get into a car after hearing her full name being called out as the car pulled up beside her.
She had earlier tried to get a taxi to a friend's house, but they were in short supply on St Stephen's night and she decided to walk the five or ten-minute route. Earlier that night, she had become separated from her girlfriends and met other male friends at a fast-food shop.
'Snap decision' to get into car
She said when the car containing five men pulled up and she heard her name being called, she thought at first it was her male friends returning for her.
The woman said: "I was walking up the street and in what seemed like no time at all a car pulled up. It was a very stupid, snap decision.
"I kind of thought it was someone I knew or one of my friends. I thought the lads might have come back for me. I heard (her name and surname) being called out. I don’t think I paused. I can’t believe I did a stupid thing. I just got into the car."
Asked who was in the car, she said it was five "boys, men, males".
She said someone told her to lie across the back seat in case they were stopped by the gardaí as they had too many in the car.
The woman said as she lay there, she was sexually assaulted by one of the men in the back and she became flustered and visibly upset. She said she had tears in her eyes and was pushing the hand away asking, "What are you doing?"
The front passenger asked if she would like to get into the front and she did so "to get away" from what was happening in the back.
However, after moving to the front, she sat on the lap of the front seat passenger and he began to sexually assault her, while another put his hand around from the back seat.
She said she was repeatedly pushing hands away and while this was happening the men were arguing about where they were going. She had asked to be taken to her friend’s house, which was near the town, but the men were talking about going to a further location.
The woman said she heard someone say "ah lads, she is good" and "we are getting it all tonight".
She told prosecuting counsel Lorcan Staines she took this to mean they wanted to "do stuff" to her. She said the men continued arguing over where they were going.
"I was still pushing hands away. I felt very flustered, and I said, 'right, I'll go if it meant this would stop'. Even after that I told them to stop and although the front passenger told the person in the back to stop, he did not stop himself," she said.
The woman said hands from the back of the car started reaching over and grabbing her breast and she seemed to go from the front to the back of the car.
"It felt very suffocating. I don’t know how ,but I went from the front to the back of the car. It felt like I teleported, I’ve no idea how," she said.
Woman tells court 'I froze up'
When the car stopped all the men got out of the car and she was back in the front seat.
She said the first man came into the car with his pants down. She said there was no communication from him before or after intercourse and at that stage she felt "a little bit paralysed, like my body and mind went into autopilot and I froze up. I think I was just really shocked."
She had tried to push herself away with her foot on the dashboard of the car but "I was going nowhere. I was in a car".
Although she could not remember the order, she believes the second man was the driver of the car.
He also did not speak to her and asked how she felt at that stage, she replied: "It sounds a bit weird, but I felt a little bit inanimate, if that makes sense." At that stage, the complainant broke down in tears in the witness box before taking a break.
When the third man got into the car, she told him to stop, but he would not stop. Around that time, she became aware of flashes and lights from camera phones outside the car and she told them to stop with the cameras.
When a fourth man had intercourse with her, she said she was feeling exactly the same as before "almost a bit numb, it is a bit of a weird thing to put into words it was almost like an out-of-body experience because although I was there I could not believe it was happening".
At that point, she remembered someone walking away from the car and someone said: "F*** him, he doesn’t get a go."
The woman said at this stage she was "vacant, upset and in tears and quite static" and was in the passenger seat alone with four men in the back as they drove back towards the town.
She said two of the occupants were dropped off at a housing estate and she was driven back to a car park, where two men in the back demanded a threesome, before she was raped and orally raped in the back of the car.
She said there was one on either side of her and she was prevented from leaving the car.
"I was upset, and I was counting down the time until I could get out of there, it was a nightmare," she said. She said she was allowed to go when one of the men stopped holding on to her.
The woman had earlier asked a number of times to use a phone and the driver gave her his phone, which she used to send a male friend a message asking for directions to a house she knew he would be in.
When she left the car, she "ran and walked" towards the area where she believed her friend would be and eventually found him with others outside a house.
She was taken into the house and her friend knew she was upset, but she did not go into detail. However, one of the other young men in the house could see she as in a bad way and insisted they go to the gardaí.
She was taken to the local garda station and her parents were called and she was taken to a sexual assault treatment unit.
She was later contacted by two of the occupants of the car through Facebook messenger to say she had left her passport in the car and one of them would get it to her.
'Repeated calls to stop'
Defence Counsel Brendan Grehan for the first accused, the driver of the car who was 17 at the time, said his client will say he did engage in sexual touching and that he kissed her, but did not have intercourse and that what happened was consensual.
The complainant said nothing was consensual. She agreed there was no suggestion from anyone in the case that she was helpless or footless or any way incapacitated by drink on the night.
She also agreed that there was no additional physical violence, such as hitting, other than the alleged acts to force her to comply with the wishes of the men. However, she said there was "coercion".
"I repeatedly told people to stop on different occasions. I repeatedly took hands away that weren’t meant to be there," she said.
Asked if his client could have had any doubt about whether she wanted him to stop, the complainant said: "Apart from anything else, on the journey there I was constantly upset and telling people to stop he definitely had an indication that I did not want to do that."
Asked if she had eventually agreed to go to a certain location with them because she was told the driver would be bringing her back to the town, she said "well that is what happened".
She was asked why she did not make any attempt to get out of the car or demand to be let out on the journey out from the town and she said: "There was one of me and five of them … it was very intimidating.
"I don’t know what would have happened especially when I had been objecting to things (earlier) and no one listened to me."
While she agreed no none threatened her, she said she did feel under threat.
Asked how they would have known, she said: "I was telling them to stop I was pulling their hands away I was visibly upset of course they would know I felt under threat."
She did not agree that the atmosphere in the car was jovial and said the men were not smiling or laughing.
The woman agreed that nothing was said when the first man had intercourse with her and when asked why she felt she could not resist, she replied: "I don’t think it’s unreasonable that I didn’t scream 'stop' or 'how dare you'. I had told them to stop (earlier) and they didn’t so what makes that different why were they going to stop then?"
She did not agree that she had kissed the driver back when he began pulling her towards him after they had driven back to the town.
The four have all pleaded not guilty to raping the then 17-year-old girl at a location in the midlands on 27 December 2016. The jury has been told a fifth man was also involved, but is not before the court.
The first accused, a now 22-year-old, has also pleaded not guilty to two counts of sexual assault and one count of false imprisonment. The second accused, now aged 24, has also pleaded not guilty to two counts of sexual assault, one count of oral rape and one count of false imprisonment.
The third defendant, now aged 24, has also pleaded not guilty to an additional count of rape, two counts of sexual assault and one count of false imprisonment. The fourth accused, now aged 23, has also pleaded not guilty to three counts of sexual assault.
All of the offending is alleged to have been committed at various locations in the midlands on the same date against the same woman when the accused were aged between 17 and 19.
The trial is expected to last a number of weeks and is taking place in Croke Park.
