Woman’s date off Tinder was ‘like monster’, she tells court

A WOMAN has told a court that a man she met through Tinder was like a ‘monster’ when he allegedly attacked her in his car.

The 36-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to sexual assault of the foreign national at the UCD campus, Belfield, on July 23, 2014.

The woman, now aged 35, told Paul Burns SC, prosecuting, that she had come to Ireland to learn English and had arrived the previous month. She said she couldn’t speak any English and was adding people to her Tinder account so she could do so.

She said she met the accused on Tinder on June 29 and they began chatting online. She said that at one point he told her: ‘I only want to f**k you’ and that she told him: ‘That was rude, I’m a good person, I’m not a w***e.’ Speaking through a translator, she told the jury that she became upset at this text from the defendant ‘because it wasn’t my intention’.

The man apologised and the pair continued to chat online on WhatsApp, the court heard. He repeatedly asked to meet her and suggested they could go for a drive in his car, it was also heard. The woman said she did agree to meet the man and arranged for him to pick her up at her address in Dublin city centre.

The court heard he drove them to the campus at UCD and turned the car engine off. She said she heard the car doors locking and that the man became very aggressive.

She said: ‘He changed completely. He was looking like a monster. He was calling me bad names and trying to touch me. The only word I could say to him, “Stop, stop, I want my house”. She said he didn’t stop and that he put his hand on her knee, pulling her dress up to her thigh.

She said he held her arm and that her breast was exposed. She hit him in his face with her elbow and he punched her head, the court heard. She said she managed to unlock the door, and that he then drove off. The trial continues.