Woman ‘shaking’ after alleged rape with Tinder date

A WOMAN who alleges she was raped by a man she met on the dating app Tinder said she was terrified he was going to beat her up.

The Louth man (36) has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to rape at Kilmashogue Lane on September 11, 2014. Both the accused and the complainant are entitled to anonymity throughout the trial.

The alleged victim told Alexander Owens SC, prosecuting, that after matching on Tinder the pair exchanged messages on Whats App, with the accused sending up to 20 messages to her within a 24 hour period.

The 31-year-old woman, who was a university student at the time, said that the accused “sounded cross” when she cancelled their first arranged meeting at short notice. A subsequent date was arranged to go for “a spin and a coffee.”

She said he told her they would take the “long way back” to the city and he drove down a rural road. He stopped the car and said: “I wouldn’t abandon you in the mountains.”

She said that after a brief kissing session, she asked him to “take it easy” but he said to her then: “What the f *** do you think we’re here for?”

She said she didn’t want a “one night stand” and he told her to “get the f *** out”.

The car returned a few minutes later, the court heard. The man told her “it’s grand, get in” – she said she felt like she didn’t have a choice.

He drove the car back to where they had been. The woman said she asked him to stop, but when he began to remove her clothes she stopped resisting. She said he then raped her.

During cross examination, defending counsel Michael Bowman SC put it to the complainant that while the date did not go as anticipated, she “willingly undressed herself” and had sex with the accused.

“It was a consensual sexual encounter between two young people who met on the internet,” he said. The woman rejected that this was what took place.

The court also heard from the complainant’s friend and housemate who said she was “shaking, very, very pale, in desperate shock and hunched over” when she arrived back to their home.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Paul Butler and a jury.