One of four men on trial accused of the rape and sexual assault of a 17-year-old accepted in interviews with gardaí that what happened to her was "wrong" and she was taken advantage of.
Four men are on trial charged with rape and sexual assault on 27 December 2016. Three of the men are also accused of false imprisonment. A fifth man is not before the court. All defendants deny the charges.
The prosecution has told the jury it is their case that the young woman was raped "one after the other" after getting into a car with the men, who were aged between 17 and 19 at the time.
The man, who was in the back seat of a car, agreed that the woman had been "grabbed and groped" by all of those in the car.
He also said that she had told them to stop touching her and that having been talkative when she first got into the car, she then became quiet.
The accused has denied rape and said he did not have intercourse with the complainant, but said he saw two others having sex with her.
In a sixth interview, he admitted to engaging in a sexual act with the woman shortly after she got into the car, having earlier denied it.
Asked why he had earlier lied about it, he said he did not remember in his earlier interviews.
He accepted that the words "rape" and "sexual assault" had arisen in a conversation afterwards with one of his friends, but said he did not know what he was on about and later said he honestly did not know if the young woman had been raped on the night.
In one of his interviews, he said after seeing his friends having sex with the complainant, he had a feeling it was wrong.
He had also told gardaí that "hand on heart now," he thought the young woman was "up for it" when she first got into the car, but then she became quiet.
In his earlier interviews with gardaí, the accused said he had seen the woman on the footpath in the town and he called out to her and asked if she wanted a lift.
He said he knew the woman from the Tinder dating app and had sent a message to her, but she had not replied. He had never met her in person or spoken to her.
He said the woman had got into the back of the car and asked if she could be dropped home.
When they got to a location out of town, he said he left the car and she was kissing the front seat passenger. When he returned to the car, they were having sex. He said she had sex with another of the passengers and he was not sure if the driver of the car had sex but he had seen the driver kissing her.
He said afterwards that she was sitting half out of the car and was asking where they were all from. He said she was "looking at me in a certain way so I went into the front seat". He said he was on top of her with his trousers down but only kissed her for 15 to 20 seconds and then got out.
He told gardaí by her body language she wanted him to kiss her, but he did not think it was a good idea to have sex and he was not comfortable. He said it did not feel right "moving from one mate to another".
Earlier in his questioning, he was asked by gardaí what was telling him it was not right.
"I’m not really sure. I got the feeling I knew not to have sex with her and I’m glad I didn’t," he said.
Asked if he had heard her ask the other men to have sex, he said he had not. Asked if she was "giving off signs" he said: "Yeah she was in the car she was all over [one of the other accused]."
He said the woman was not too drunk as she recognised him from Tinder. Asked if he felt she might have been vulnerable or scared, he replied that he did not know because she did not show any signs.
Asked if looking back on it, could it have been a scary situation for her, to which he agreed it could have been a little bit.
In a later interview, he said when he and friends met the next day, the driver of the car had been taken to the station by gardaí, the words "rape" and "sexual assault" were used. He said he did not know what to think and they were all "worried and concerned".
Asked if it seemed to him like the complainant was having a good time, he replied: "Not after seeing the video of her running away."
Asked what was normal about driving to an isolated spot and "lining up to have sex while one sits in the car watching" he replied "nothing normal".
Gardaí also told him there were 13 missed calls from one of the other accused the morning after the incidents, suggesting they wanted to speak to him urgently. Asked if he was concerned about what he had done, he replied "a small bit yeah". Asked if he was concerned about the entire situation he replied "yeah".
Asked if she was raped or sexually assaulted that night, he replied: "I don’t know if she was raped, but she did move into the front seat."
Asked if she was sexually assaulted, causing her to move to the front seat, he said: "She just wasn’t comfortable." He told gardaí they all reached into the front seat to touch the girl after she had moved away from them.
Asked why he did not walk away when they reached the isolated location, which was ten minutes from his home he replied: "I should have."
During cross examination by defence counsel Hugh Hartnett, it was put to a garda witness that the accused had been handcuffed when arrested and a long conversation had taken place while on the way to the garda station, during which he was told to say he knew things were not right that night. The garda witness replied: "Absolutely not".
It was also put to him that before one interview, 16 minutes elapsed in an interview room before a recording device was switched on.
Mr Harnett said "out of the blue" his client had admitted to a sexual act having persistently denied it in the previous four interviews and suddenly, after 16 unrecorded minutes, he made an admission.
He asked what was the "magic formula" used by the gardaí to get the admission they were looking for. The garda witness replied it was incorrect to say that was the admission they were looking for and he was asked in the interview why he had not told them before.
The garda witness said information and disclosures were drip fed by the accused between interview one and five.
