The mother of a teenage girl allegedly raped in a public park by a 17-year-old boy has told a jury that her daughter “could barely walk” when she saw her.
The defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty to one count of raping the then 15-year-old girl and not guilty to one count of sexually assaulting her at a park in south Dublin on April 13th, 2019.
On day five of his trial at the Central Criminal Court the girl's aunt said that she was walking in the area when she heard a girl and a boy who were quite loud. She noticed the girl had no shoes on and then realised it was her niece.
Dishevelled
“I was stunned by the way she looked. She is always immaculately turned out. She was dishevelled. Her clothes were dirty and torn. She wasn't walking properly.
“I called her and she just walked past me. I shouted at her again. I said are you okay. The person with her said, 'ah it's alright, I got her',” she told the jury.
She said it's not like her niece not to stop to talk to her and she suspected something was wrong. She followed the pair and rang the child's mother.
Michael Bowman SC, defending, put it to the witness that in her statement to gardaí she never stated that her niece's legging were torn. The woman said she told gardaí her niece looked dishevelled and said that she was sorry she hadn't been more “specific”.
The mother testified that she rang her daughter and the girl said she was with her female friend and denied that she was with a boy. She said she told her daughter she was lying and told her she was grounded and her daughter hung up on her.
The jury heard the complainant then texted her mother stating: “why are you grounding me. that’s so unfair. I'm meeting up with [female friend] now. And he didn’t have my shoes, that’s a load of crap”.
Aggressive
She said that she located her daughter on a road and told her to get into the car. She said her daughter was aggressive and refused to get in to the car.
She said the complainant tried to run off but fell, telling the jury that “she could barely walk”. She said she got out of the car and began wrestling with her daughter and ended up dragging her by her hair to get her into the car.
She said her daughter was abusive to her on the journey home. Once home she went upstairs where her stepfather spoke to her and tried to calm her down.
The girl's stepfather said that the girl was so upset that he had to physically restrain her by sitting on her. He said he rang a mental health hospital, where the girl previously received treatment, and he was advised to call an ambulance.
He said the girl then told him that “a boy made her do something she didn't want to do”. Her mother testified that her daughter later told her “a boy had sex with me and I didn't want to”.
The trial continues before Ms Eileen Justice Creedon and a jury.
