Labour TD and former tánaiste Joan Burton has told the Circuit Criminal Court she felt terrified as a crowd of water charges protesters surged towards her as she tried to leave an event in Tallaght in Dublin in 2014.
Ms Burton said she had already felt afraid, menaced and worried as protesters surrounded her car, banged on it and shouted abuse and called her names for up to an hour.
Ms Burton became emotional as she was giving evidence in the trial of Solidarity TD Paul Murphy and six other men who are charged with falsely imprisoning her and her adviser Karen O'Connell during a water charges protest in November 2014.
Ms Burton said as she left her car to move to a garda jeep, she became terrified as the crowd surged towards them. She said she lost her shoe and was afraid if the crowd "got her" she would not be able to run.
Ms Burton had earlier encountered protesters as she walked from an educational centre to a church for a graduation ceremony.
She said someone approached and had a camera phone in her face and repeatedly said "speak to us Joan".
She also heard shouts of abuse and heard chants of "shame on you".
She also said she was hit in the neck with first an object like a ball and then a "water bomb", which drenched her hair and jacket.
She said she got a shock but tried to regain her composure and walked on looking straight ahead.
Inside the church, she said, she could see people were getting concerned and she was told it would be better to leave.
She described how her car was surrounded and a large crowd gathered.
She said the car could not move for about an hour and she was concerned about children who were present.
She said she was called a number of names which were derogatory, everyday terms of abuse for women, such as b**ch and c****.
She said her adviser, Karen O'Connell, started to cry and became extremely upset and the two women put their arms around each other.
She said at one point she looked out the window of the car and saw Solidarity TD Paul Murphy who was speaking on a megaphone. She said he looked "very happy with himself" and was "the man with the megaphone".
She described how she became terrified while outside the car as gardaí tried to escort her to a jeep.
"The guards were getting a horrible time. There was a hole in the windscreen of the jeep, it had been shattered."
She said the jeep made very slow progress as it tried to move and she was in the vehicle for up to two hours.
She then said she later saw Paul Murphy walk away with a garda looking very happy with himself.
At that stage a large number of objects were being thrown at the jeep. Missiles were being thrown and she could hear it hitting off the car and hitting her driver.
She said she spent a lot of her time in the vehicle trying to figure out where she would run to if the doors of the jeep were opened, if the protesters "got to us".
Ms Burton described how when she was advised to move vehicles again, she felt like she had to "run for her life" up a hill.
"I was cold and stiff after three hours in the cars, I don't know where I got the energy to run," she said.
She said she was eventually able to get out of the car at the Phoenix Park and was able to use bathroom facilities.
She said all the time she was worried about where she would be able to run to if the crowd "got to her".
Ms Burton's cross-examination by counsel for Paul Murphy has begun.
Senior Counsel Sean Guerin has questioned her extensively about the Labour Party's election manifesto which said the party was not in favour of water charges.
Ms Burton said water charges were part of a number of measures introduced as part of the bailout programme.
Mr Guerin put it to her that six months after the Troika had left Ireland and the end of the bailout programme water charges had still not been introduced.
He also put it to her that water charges "were a lightning rod for people to express their dissatisfaction with austerity".
Mr Guerin said there had been widespread protests against water charges nationwide including attendances of 100,000 in Dublin and an aggregate of 150,000 in a later nationwide demonstration.
Ms Burton accepted the numbers were significant.
Mr Guerin also put it to Joan Burton that Jobstown was a disadvantaged area of high unemployment and lone parent families and policies in her department had affected the area.
He also said her department had cut child benefit a number of times. Ms Burton said it was subsequently restored.
He also put it to her that by November 2014 there had been substantial reductions in social welfare payments to the disadvantaged and the working poor.
Ms Burton said some of the cuts had been painful but as the "horrific level of unemployment" had started to fall it gave space for additional payments to those who needed it and she did that as soon as possible.
Defence counsel Kerida Naidoo for Cllr Kieran Mahon said Ms Burton had made "a long self-serving political speech" instead of answering a simple question.
He had repeatedly asked Ms Burton if she was aware of the anger felt by the people of Tallaght about austerity. Ms Burton said Tallaght was no different to anywhere else. She did not agree that everyone in Tallaght was angry but said some people were.
He also asked Ms Burton if she agreed that protest was a critical element of political progress. Ms Burton said she absolutely agreed but believed in peaceful protesting. Mr Naidoo also put it to Ms Burton that politics did not just happen in the Dáil and happened in people's homes and elsewhere.
In response to some questions she was asked by Mr Naidoo not "to make a speech" and to answer the questions put to her. Prosecution counsel Sean Gillane intervened to say if Mr Naidoo was asking political questions he could not complain if he got a political answer.
Mr Naidoo said Ms Burton had given "another evasive long answer to a simple question".
The offences are alleged to have occurred on 15 November 2014, as the tánaiste was attending a graduation ceremony at An Cosán Centre in Jobstown in Tallaght.
Paul Murphy, Dublin councillors Kieran Mahon and Michael Murphy, and four other men deny the charges.
The defendants are Solidarity TD Paul Murphy, who is 34 and from Kingswood Heights in Tallaght; Councillor Michael Murphy, who is 53 and from Whitechurch Way in Ballyboden in Dublin; Councillor Kieran Mahon, who is 39 and from Bolbrook Grove in Tallaght; 34-year-old Scott Masterson, from Carrigmore Drive in Tallaght; 71-year-old Frank Donaghy from Alpine Rise in Tallaght; 46-year-old Michael Banks from Brookview Green in Tallaght; and 50-year-old Ken Purcell from Kiltalown Green also in Tallaght.
The trial is expected to last at least six weeks.
