‘I DON’T THINK SHE WOULD BE A MATCH’
Olding gives evidence as he insists sexual activity consensual
RAPE accused Stuart Olding said yesterday sexual activity only happened because the alleged victim wanted it to.
The rugby star was asked at Belfast Crown Court of the outcome if the woman had tried to resist him and co-accused Paddy Jackson.
Olding, 24, said: “I don’t think she would be a match.”
STUART Olding yesterday agreed a young woman wouldn’t be a “match” for two rugby players such as himself and Paddy Jackson if she had not wanted to engage in sexual activity.
He was facing prosecution barrister Toby Hedworth QC on day two of the defence case in his rape trial.
Mr Hedworth put it to him: “There comes a stage that night where you and Paddy Jackson are in his bedroom with that young woman.
“You are both professional rugby players. Your work is physically engaging, you use not only your skill but also your strength in an attempt to overpower your opponent.
“What match is a young woman going to be for the pair of you if she is going to try to resist?”
Olding, who denies rape, replied: “If she had resisted in any way or hadn’t wanted it to happen I wouldn’t have had a problem with that, I would not want it to happen, I wouldn’t have carried on.”
But Mr Hedworth asked him again what sort of match she would be for the pair if she did not want to participate in intimate behaviour with them.
Olding replied “I don’t think she would be a match.”
The prosecutor described a number of Olding’s accounts of the night in question and incidents that followed as “fanciful”, a “work of fiction” and “nonsense” during cross-examination of the 24-year-old.
Facing one charge of rape, he has sat in the dock beside co-accused Paddy Jackson, Blane Mcilroy and Rory Harrison for the past six weeks at Belfast Crown Court. The men all deny the charges against them.
The prosecutor put it to Olding: “I am asking you to consider what you did to [the woman] in the early hours of June 28, 2016, and what you did you knew full well you should not have done.”
Olding replied: “I don’t agree with that.”
Mr Hedworth continued: “When you entered that bedroom that young woman looked at you and said to Paddy Jackson, ‘Please, no, not him too’.”
Olding responded: “I don’t remember any of that happening.”
He added the complainant, then aged 19, had “invited” him to join the sexual activity in Jackson’s bedroom.
Olding told the court: “I was invited in by [her] and that’s the reason I went in.”
He said the woman put her arm out to him and beckoned him towards her.
Asked by Mr Hedworth to show the court how she had signalled, Olding placed his right arm out with the palm of his hand facing up, adding: “Like that.” Mr Hedworth QC said: “She just beckons you in and you take over. This is complete nonsense, isn’t it Mr Olding?”
The defendant replied: “No, it is not nonsense at all.”
The prosecutor asked Olding had he been a “passive” “sex toy” for the complainant.
Mr Hedworth QC said: “You say she is performing oral sex. You are in a passive role and you are not thrusting your penis into her mouth.”
Olding replied: “Because I wasn’t.” Mr Hedworth added: “And you’re doing nothing, just lying there – her sex toy?” Olding responded: “I wouldn’t put it that way.”
Mr Hedworth said: “She wants to take sufficient control of the two of you that she wants a condom?”
PROTECT
The barrister put it to Olding that the men’s version of events was put together by two or more of them to protect themselves.
He said: “That young woman freaked out. She says, ‘Please tell me you used a condom’, and that was the one thing when police asked you, that was something you guys have to be able to refer to.” Olding denied the claim and said Jackson looked for a condom in a drawer but found none.
Mr Hedworth said: “That night you were not interested in what [the complainant] wanted to do or was prepared to do.
“She was, I suggest, to each of you just a vehicle for your own sexual desires that night.” Olding replied: “I wouldn’t put it that way.”
The court heard how the rugby player, who had returned from an Ireland tour of South Africa, had consumed eight tins of Carlsberg, four pints of Guinness, two gin and tonics, five vodkas with lemonade and five shots of Tequila or Sambuca while socialising in Belfast and a further tin of beer back at Jackson’s home over a 12-hour period.
He told the court he had eaten pizza bought by Blane Mcilroy’s father at the Mcilroy family home and a burger and chips at Cutter’s Wharf bar.
Mr Hedworth told him: “To put it in jargon, it was a bit of a skinful.
“And the danger if you’ve had far too
much to drink is the situation where people are doing things that are not only inappropriate but things that are downright wrong.”
Olding responded: “For some people yes, but I was in complete control of my actions.”
The prosecutor put it to him: “If you had that amount of drink there’s a danger of disregarding the wishes or views of another person if they get in the way of what you want to achieve.”
Olding told him: “I wouldn’t agree with that.” Mr Hedworth later quizzed him about an exchange he had with Jackson discussing if they had vaginal or anal sex with the woman. The barrister said: “By the time you were interviewed on June 30, you had had a discussion about who’s going to say what sort of sexual activity there had been.” Olding denied it.
ATTEMPT
The barrister said: “It was all part of an attempt to row each other out of this mess you have gotten yourselves into.” Olding said: “No.”
Mr Hedworth suggested Blane Mcilroy “got his lines wrong” and that neither Mcilroy nor Harrison had told Olding of their concerns about the woman’s reaction after leaving Jackson’s home.
Harrison was said to have seen her in “hysterics” and messaged Mcilroy saying “it wasn’t going to end well”.
Mr Hedworth asked: “Were you not cross with Mr Harrison for keeping it a secret?” Olding replied: “Yes.”
The barrister pressed him: “Not furious?” Olding replied: “Well, yes I was.”
Mr Hedworth closed his crossexamination of Olding by suggesting he was trying to cover up what happened on a drunken night where he “went way beyond” what he “knew was acceptable”.
Olding told him everything that happened was “consensual”.
The barrister first asked him about an exchange of Whatsapp messages.
He told Olding: “You said, ‘I’ve done it and I shouldn’t have done it.” You did it and you shouldn’t have done it. What you did you knew full well you shouldn’t have done.” Olding told the barrister: “I don’t agree with that.”