Victim blacked out after he took soft drink from attacker

A STUDENT was sexually assaulted after losing his memory when he drank a can of cola given to him by a man who gave him a lift home from a nightclub.

The victim, who cannot be identified, was waiting for a taxi when he was approached by Neil McBride, Letterkenny Circuit Court heard.

The victim, who was 19 at the time of the offence in 2007, got into the car after a disco in Gaoth Dobhair, Co. Donegal. As McBride drove, he told the younger man that he needed to get something from his own house, and the pair went there.

Inside, McBride, 48, gave the man a can of cola, and the victim became drowsy. He telephoned his mother from the bathroom but his memory of the night ended shortly after the phone call. However, he remembered waking up in his boxer shorts, with McBride assaulting him.

The victim attended an out-ofhours doctor service and said he suspected he had been raped. Gardaí went to interview the student but he did not make a complaint until 2015.

During interviews, McBride said to claims that he had drugged the man, ‘If there were drugs in his system he didn’t get them in my house.’

McBride, 48, said the student had wanted to stay in his house, and that when he went to put a quilt over him, he accidentally struck him in the groin area.

The jury found McBride guilty of a charge of sexual assault on October 7, 2007. Judge John Aylmer ordered a probation and psychiatric report and adjourned the case to April.