Witness tells of woman’s claim she was kidnapped by ex-partner

A man has told a jury how he answered his door to a woman in the middle of the night who claimed she had been kidnapped by her former partner.

The woman’s partner is accused of abducting and raping the woman after she obtained a barring order against him. He also allegedly beat and threatened the 29-year-old throughout their five-year relationship.

The allegations made in the Central Criminal Court include that he locked the woman and their children in a rat-infested, flooded apartment for hours on end. She also alleged he urinated on her and her son and that he held her head under water in the bath, knowing that she had a fear of water.

The woman further alleged the man forced her to drink a pint of milk and would slap her whenever she split a drop.

She told the jury she decided to leave him for good after he threatened to “put the teeth down your throat” when she asked if she could go to the gym.

He later allegedly abducted her from her sister’s house and held her in a friend’s house overnight where he raped her. She said she managed to escape when he fell asleep.

The man has pleaded not guilty to rape, false imprisonment, breaching a barring order and production of an article in November 2015 and four counts of assault causing harm between 2011 and 2015.

On Tuesday, a witness told prosecuting counsel Brendan Grehan SC that he answered the door in the early hours of Sunday, November 8th, 2015 to find a woman in a very distressed state.

The woman was crying and told the man that someone was after her. She gave him her name and asked him to ring the gardaí­. She said gardaí­ were looking for her.

The witness, from Co Longford, said he took her inside and rang his local Garda station. The garda who answered confirmed they were looking for the woman and asked if she was safe.

The man made her a cup of tea and turned the lights off at the front of the house to make it look like no one was home while they waited for the gardaí­ to arrive. He said the woman was spilling her tea because she was shaking so much. She had make-up streaked across her face and had hand-marks on her neck, he said.

The man said the woman told him she had been held by her partner in a neighbouring house since the day before. He said she told him she had “pretended to be with (her partner) because he had threatened to kill her”.

The trial continues.