‘I hoped for a threesome went into bedroom,’court hears
Blane McIlroy’s accused of inventing a ‘preposterous’ version of night’s events
A MAN who is accused of exposing himself to a woman after she was allegedly raped by two Ireland and Ulster rugby players has said he had hoped for a threesome with her.
Blane McIlroy told Belfast Crown Court that he was serious when he sent his friend, rape accused Paddy Jackson, a text message asking if there was a chance of a threesome.
The alleged victim was at a party in Mr Jackson’s south Belfast house after a night out at Ollie’s nightclub in the city when she joined him in his bedroom.
When Mr McIlroy noticed Mr Jackson and the woman had gone upstairs together he sent the rugby star a message asking if there was a chance of a threesome, the court heard.
Smartly dressed in a charcoal suit, white shirt and purple tie, Mr McIlroy was asked by the prosecution: ‘You wanted to go up to the bedroom and join in sexual activity with [the woman]?’
He replied: ‘Yes, if it happened, yes.’
The 26-year-old said he got no reply from his text. He told the court that around 10 minutes later he decided to go upstairs to sleep.
Mr McIlroy, who is charged with one count of exposure, said: ‘I went up and opened the door of Mr Jackson’s room. I was fully clothed.
‘I saw Paddy and [the woman] lying on the bed naked. I said “Oh sorry” and then I went in.’
He added: ‘I said “What have you two been up to tonight?” and she smiled.
‘I sat down on the bed beside [her]. She turned towards me, and me and her were talking and we started kissing.’
He was asked by his defence barrister, Arthur Harvey QC, if there had been any reluctance on the woman’s part. He replied: ‘No’. When asked if the kissing was mutual, he replied: ‘Yes.’
Mr Harvey then asked him: ‘Did you force yourself on her?’ He replied: ‘Not at all.’ When asked if the woman had said ‘no’ or ‘stop’, Mr McIlroy replied: ‘Never. No.’
He told the court that the woman then put her hand down the waistband of his boxer shorts and performed a sex act on him.
Mr McIlroy said he then left the room to find a condom and when he came back the woman was at the foot of the bed getting dressed and Jackson was lying in the bed.
‘I said I couldn’t find a condom. She said “it’s fine, it’s late.” She said, “I don’t usually have one night stands”,’ Mr McIlroy said.
He claimed that the woman continued to get dressed and then she went downstairs and left in a taxi with co-accused Rory Harrison, 25, of Manse Road, Belfast. Mr McIlroy said the alleged victim was not upset when she left the house.
Under cross examination by the prosecution, Mr McIlroy was accused of inventing a ‘preposterous’ version of events. Prosecution barrister Toby Hedworth QC said the account was ‘complete Fantasy Island’.
The alleged victim had claimed he had simply exposed himself to her but had not complained of any unwanted sexual contact.
Mr McIlroy is on trial alongside Mr Jackson, 26, from Oakleigh Park in Belfast, and Stuart Olding, 24, from Ardenlee Street in the city, who are both charged with raping the same woman following a night out in Belfast on June 28 2016.
Mr Harrison is charged with perverting the course of justice and withholding information.
Mr Hedworth told the court that after the alleged attack all of the accused together concocted a story for police but that Mr McIlroy ‘delivered the wrong lines’ and gave them Olding’s version of events as his own.
Mr Hedworth asked Mr McIlroy: ‘Do you have any idea how preposterous your account of all this is?’
‘When the police phoned, I panicked’
Mr Hedworth added: ‘Has the penny not dropped? Even your own friends are suggesting you have the story wrong.’
Mr McIlroy replied: ‘No, I’ve told the truth from the word go.’
He denied his version of events was ‘fantasy’.
‘Can I make it clear this is complete Fantasy Island on your behalf, isn’t it?’ Mr Hedworth asked.
‘No it’s not,’ Mr McIlroy responded.
Mr Hedworth put to him: ‘This is you attempting to give a version to police after your friends have been arrested in respect of a serious sexual offence and you then find yourself arrested.
‘You give what you think is meant to be your version of events.’
He added: ‘Instead, you gave Stuart Olding’s version of events.’
Olding previously told the court that he had walked in on Jackson and the woman and that she had performed a sex act on him.
‘You never engaged in sexual activity. There never was sexual activity involving you but you thought your job was to give this version which was hatched up,’ Mr Hedworth put to the accused.
The barrister continued: ‘You have delivered the wrong lines. You have put yourself there rather than Stuart Olding.’
Mr McIlroy responded: ‘No I told the police everything. The truth.’
In a later exchange, Mr McIlroy admitted deleting text messages from his phone when he realised there was a police investigation.
Mr McIlroy told the trial he ‘panicked’ and thought the messages ‘didn’t read well’, so he deleted them before he handed his phone over to police.
‘When the police phoned me, I panicked and thought they didn’t read well. In hindsight I shouldn’t have,’ he said. The messages had been exchanged with friends, including one sent to Rory Harrison, who is accused of perverting the course of justice. One of the messages was sent to Mr Harrison after he dropped the alleged victim home in a taxi.
The court previously heard the woman had been upset on the journey home. The message from Mr McIlroy to Mr Harrison read: ‘Really? f*** sake. Did you calm her? Where did she live?’
Mr McIlroy said he was not worried about the messages, but he thought they might be read in the wrong way by police.
The court heard he handed his phone into police when he went to be interviewed as part of their investigation into the woman’s allegations of rape.
The 26 year-old also told the court that he did not feel good about other messages he had sent to friends with references to sexual activity.
‘[It was] boasting about something that didn’t happen to that extent. It was silly boasting. I don’t feel good about it,’ he said.
Referring to a photograph of himself with three women that he sent to some friends in a WhatsApp group with the message ‘Love Belfast sluts’, McIlroy said: ‘It is not a true reflection of the girls, and I’m not happy with it.’
The trial is due to continue this morning.