Rape case focus on teen’s thong

Hundreds of protesters have marched through Irish cities after a lawyer argued that an alleged rape victim’s choice of underwear meant the teenage girl had consented to sex.

The demonstrations in Dublin, Cork and Limerick followed the acquittal of a 27-year-old man after his lawyer told jurors that the teenage complainant ‘‘was wearing a thong with a lace front’’. The case sparked fury in Ireland, with thousands of women sharing images of their underwear on Twitter and the hashtag #thisisnotconsent in the aftermath of the verdict.

The man, who was acquitted by a jury at Cork’s Central Criminal Court on Nov 5, denied raping the 17-year-old girl in a lane in the city. Elizabeth O’Connell, the defence counsel, reportedly asked jurors: ‘‘Does the evidence outrule the possibility that she was attracted to the defendant and was open to meeting someone and being with someone? You have to look at the way she was dressed. She was wearing a thong with a lace front.’’

A jury of eight men and four women acquitted the man unanimously after deliberating for 90 minutes, the reported.

O’Connell’s comments drew condemnation from women’s rights groups and sparked calls to change the way rape trials are conducted in Ireland. On Wednesday, protests reached Ireland’s parliament, the Dail, where Ruth Coppinger, a member for Dublin West, produced a blue thong during a debate.

‘‘It might seem embarrassing to show a pair of thongs here . . . how do you think a rape victim or a woman feels at the incongruous setting of her underwear being shown in a court,’’ she asked fellow parliamentarians. Irish Examiner Elizabeth O’Connell, defence counsel

Coppinger led a protest march through Dublin city centre yesterday under the slogan ‘‘end victim blaming in the courts’’.

Meanwhile, about 200 protesters marched through the centre of Cork to lay underwear on the steps of the court where the trial had been held.

Noeline Blackwell, the head of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, told the Irish Independent: ‘‘The reference to the girl’s underwear and the assumption and inference that the jury was being invited to draw – that because she was dressed like that she was asking for sex – does not surprise us.’’

‘‘It comes up very, very regularly how someone was dressed, the amount of drink they had taken, why they hadn’t screamed if they were in trouble.’’

– Telegraph Group

‘‘You have to look at the way she was dressed. She was wearing a thong with a lace front.’’