Jury to consider its verdict in Tinder UCD sexual assault case

BEING naive or foolish does not give someone the right to sexually assault you, a lawyer has told the trial of a former UCD student accused of sexually assaulting a woman he met on Tinder.

“Everyone has the right to say no to sexual advances and for that right to be respected”, Paul Burns SC told the jury in his closing speech.

The jury will consider its verdict this morning.

The 36-year-old accused has denied sexually assaulting the woman, claiming she “freaked out” and “started crying” when he tried to kiss her.

The woman has alleged the accused touched her thighs, forced her to kiss him, called her a “f *cking b*tch” and pulled down the top part of her dress and exposed her breast.

The Dublin man has pleaded not guilty before Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to the sexual assault of the woman at the UCD campus at Belfield on July 23, 2014.

On day seven of the trial the jury heard gardaí interviewed the accused on two occasions.

The accused told gardaí he picked the woman up in the city centre, and drove out to UCD. There was “more or less no conversation” in the car.

He hoped they would “make out and maybe have sex”, the jury heard, though there was “no pre-arrangement” to have sex.

The accused said he believed they were probably meeting for sex because he had told her on Tinder he was a porn star.

He said this was banter, but she seemed quite interested. He also told her he would like her to star in a film with him, and he claimed she told him “that interests me very much”.

He said he drove to a secluded area in UCD and leaned over to kiss her.

“I did try and kiss her and when she asked me to stop and pushed me off I stopped immediately”, he told gardaí.

He said she then “freaked out completely” and started crying. She asked to leave so they left, he said.

He drove through the campus, and asked her to get out of the car because she was freaking out. She did not know where she was, and begged him not to throw her out of the car.

He said he pulled into a field to talk to her and try to calm her down. The door was locked and she pulled it to open it. He told her “will you, jesus, relax”. He was thinking “what the f**k, it’s like a mad, mad situation”, he told gardaí. She got out of the car and he drove off.

He denied to gardaí that he hit her, forced her to kiss him or sexually assaulted her. However, he may have “brushed off her cheek with his lips” when he leaned in to kiss her.

In his closing speech, prosecutor Paul Burns SC told the jury the accused’s version of events was “not credible”.

Mr Burns said the jury may believe the woman was naive or foolish, but that did not give someone the right to attack her or sexually assault her.

Defence counsel Paul Flannery SC said the accused was not “gentlemanly” but he had provided gardaí with a “coherent narrative” of what had happened.

Mr Flannery said the accused made no bones about what he was doing on Tinder and was upfront at all times with gardaí.

“If you’re like me, you don’t approve of men taking women out on Tinder for dates or sex. Neither sympathy for her or distaste for him is relevant,” he said. The trial continues.