RAPE TRIAL
Jury visits scene of alleged attack by Ireland rugby players Nicola Anderson on a week of harrowing testimony,
I’M sorry if this is in any way distressing. It is important that we show the items of clothing,” the barrister for Paddy Jackson began, as a number of rustling brown paper evidence bags were produced in court.
First, a pair of white trousers were displayed solemnly to judge and jury.
It took some time before they were taken around the room by a female court usher wearing blue latex gloves.
Next came the black sparkly top the young woman at the centre of this rape trial had worn on the night of the alleged sex attack.
“Perhaps you can confirm that there is clear marking on the inside surfaces of the top which was caused by, presumably, it coming into contact with tanning,” Brendan Kelly QC, for Mr Jackson, said.
“It’s a high-necked top, so when you’re taking it off, it catches make-up,” the alleged victim explained.
The clothes had been produced in court because she had told police her trousers had been covered in blood and because the morning after the alleged attack the young woman had sent a text to her friend saying: “Like I hadn’t even shaved my legs/had only tanned the bottom of them and my arms.
“No way I was ready or up for f ****** anything.”
She told Mr Kelly that in addition to this, she had also tanned a small area of her back, where a slit in the top displayed skin.
The barrister asked her if there was any reason she had not told her friend that she had tanned that part of her body too.
“The point I was making is that I had not tanned my whole body — it was patchy,” she told him.
“It looks ridiculous if you haven’t tanned your whole body.”
Next came the underwear she had worn that night, the young woman blushing profusely as they were produced, as discreetly as possible, displayed flat on the brown paper bag by the usher.
She had earlier told the court that she had been bleeding after the alleged attack and initially thought it was her period, but that a medical examination found she had been injured.
Mr Kelly put it to her that there was blood on the thinnest part of the pants, and asked why this was so if she had not put them on after the alleged attack, but had put them back in her pocket as she claimed.
“Because I wiped myself, I was aware I was bleeding,” she said with quiet dignity.
For the 21-year-old woman, this was clearly one of the most difficult and painful parts of the hearing to date.
Jackson (26) and his teammate Stuart Olding (24) are both standing trial at Belfast Crown Court accused of raping the woman at the same time following a night out in the city in June 2016.
Both men have denied the charge, while Jackson has been accused of, and denies, a further charge of sexual assault.
Also appearing with Jackson and Olding are Blane McIlroy (26), from Royal Lodge Road in Belfast, who has been charged with one count of exposure, and Rory Harrison (25), from Manse Road, who is facing charges of perverting the course of justice and withholding information.
The second week of the hearing saw a lengthy and forensic cross-examination of the young woman by barristers for Mr Jackson, Mr Olding and Mr Harrison.
Cross-examination by the barrister for Mr McIlroy is scheduled to begin on Monday.
Dressed in a shirt and with her hair in a pony tail, the young woman became emotional several times when the crucial issue at the heart of this case was probed by Mr Kelly in his cross-examination, when he addressed the problem of consent.
He asked her about her earlier statement that it hadn’t been much of a party, saying: “You had music, you had drink if you wanted it, you had company if you wanted it — so what was wrong with that party?”
“Yes, I thought there’d be a lot more people there,” she told him, adding it wasn’t the sort of after-party she was used to.
So why not ring your friends and tell them to come, he suggested.
“I didn’t think it was appropriate because it wasn’t my house,” she replied.
“So there was nothing wrong with the party,” said Mr Kelly.
He suggested she was “fixated” on Paddy Jackson and had been “staring at him all night” during the party.
The young woman vehemently denied this.
She had kissed Mr Jackson, she admitted — but added consensual kissing was not consent for anything else.
She strongly denied Mr Kelly’s claim that she had “invented” details of the alleged attack because she had been in an “intoxicated and excited state” that night and had engaged in sexual activity and was afraid it would end up on social media.
That’s what had driven her on to “running with this lie”, he said.
Her response was slow and measured: “No, this is not a lie, Mr Kelly,” she told him.
To Frank O’Donoghue, QC for Mr Olding, she said she had been “handled like a piece of meat” during the events that night.
“There wasn’t one bit of my body that hadn’t been touched,” she said.