A taxi driver has gone on trial charged with raping two young women in separate incidents in Dublin in the summer of 2022.
The court heard that both women had both been working, socialising and drinking in the city centre. The first incident took place in June 2022 and the second in August of that year.
Each young woman found themselves in a taxi driven by the accused while on their way home from a night out and each said they were raped by him.
The man, who is 50, is from Dublin. He claims that in each case the interactions with the women were instigated by them and were consensual. He cannot be named as it is illegal to name someone charged with rape. A person charged with rape can be named only if they are convicted, and if it does not identify the complainant.
Prosecuting counsel Gerardine Small told the jury that the first young woman, who is now 21, was socialising after work on the night of 25 June 2022 and had five pints of cider. She became separated from her friends and tried to make her own way home.
The court heard she was not used to drinking so much and was very drunk. She then woke up in the passenger seat of a car driven by the accused man.
The prosecution alleges this woman was raped as she was drifting in and out of consciousness.
She was eventually dropped near her home in the early hours of the morning and gardaí were alerted later that day. CCTV footage gathered by them identified the young woman getting into a taxi and the accused man was identified as the driver.
DNA samples taken from him on his arrest in September 2022 matched DNA taken from the woman's body.
The man gave gardaí a pre-prepared statement, saying that the woman had instigated the physical interaction and any sexual interaction was consensual.
The second young woman was working very early on 8 August 2022 and then went socialising with friends. Ms Small said this young woman was very tired and got into a taxi in the city centre.
She was falling in and out of sleep and woke up to find the accused man having sex with her. She was shocked and felt vulnerable and did not feel able to fight back.
The jury heard the driver brought her to her destination and charged her for the fare. When he was arrested in August 2022, DNA samples matched DNA found on swabs taken from the woman’s body.
In this case, the driver also claimed the woman instigated the physical contact and that the sexual encounter was consensual.
The court heard the two women did not know each other.
Ms Small told the jurors that while the two cases were being tried together they must treat each allegation separately.
First woman gives evidence to court
In her evidence, the first young woman said she was not used to drinking so much. She said she was very drunk and lost her friends as she was playing a stupid game where she ran away.
She said she remembered going to a pizza restaurant to use the bathroom and fell down the stairs. Her next memory, she said, was waking up in a car, in the passenger seat, which was slightly reclined.
The young woman said she was slumped backwards in the seat and was very dazed with "heavy eyes" - losing consciousness every time she closed her eyes.
The man who was driving stopped the car, she said, and got on top of her and pulled down her trousers. She said he then "tossed" her into the back seat and got on top of her again. The woman then described the details of the alleged rapes to the jury.
She said that when she was leaving the car, she asked the man his name. She told Ms Small that he did not give her his name but said something like "you’ll see me around".
The woman said that when she arrived at her home she saw her bags scattered on the steps outside and had no clue how they got there.
She said she had thrown up and took 15 minutes to find her house keys. She then went inside and went to bed.
The young woman said she felt "awful" and "mentally drained" the next morning but got up and headed to work, stopping to buy the morning-after pill at a pharmacy along the way.
In work, she told a colleague that she had been raped and was told to go home. A garda investigation subsequently began.
The woman said her energy levels were "non existent" while the man was carrying out his actions and she was "almost asleep".
She said she had at no stage consented to have sexual interaction with him. She said she did not touch him and did not want to have sex with him that night.
Defence counsel, Lorcan Staines, put it to the young woman that the driver had followed her instructions and driven to a housing estate.
She denied that they had been getting on well and that developed into kissing and consensual sexual activity.
Asked if they were "both engaging in this together", as the man claimed, the young woman replied "no."
She said she had not touched the man and had no energy and was blacking out the whole time.
Mr Staines also said his instructions from his client that she had told the man at one stage that he was "cute", that he had asked her how she could fancy him and that she had said "I don't normally fancy boys".
She denied that she had initiated the sexual activity.
A friend of the young woman’s family told the court that the young woman had returned home from work early the following day.
She said the woman had told her she had been sent home because she kept messing up and had been raped. This witness told the court the young woman was very pale and subdued and described how she had woken up "underneath a man in a car".
She said the young woman said she had a "black hole in her memory" in relation to what had happened before that. The witness said they called the Rape Crisis Centre and the gardaí.
A former work colleague of the young woman said she had been a little bit drunk when she was socialising after work.
Another colleague had gone to try to put her in a taxi but came back some time later to say they had lost her.
The next day he said the young woman told him she was not feeling good and had been raped in a car the night before and he and another colleague told her to go home.
The trial will continue tomorrow.
