A man accused of rape was seriously knifed in the genital area by his alleged victim's husband with whom he had been out drinking for several hours, a Central Criminal Court jury was told.
Both men and their wives were close friends for some 18 years and the two women had also been socialising separately in the accused's home on the night before the alleged rape.
The alleged victim told the jury she and her friend consumed just over a 75cl bottle of Bacardi with coke before she went home in a taxi around midnight and went to sleep just after 1 a.m. She claimed she woke up to find the accused having sex with her. She denied there had been consensual sexual activity that night and on previous occasions between her and the accused or that her husband once accused them of having an affair. She agreed her husband's account of some of the events of the night differed from hers.
A 36-year-old Co Wicklow man denies raping and sexually assaulting his friend's wife in her bed on July 30th, 1998.
Mr Anthony Sammon SC, prosecuting, told the jury at the start of the case that the alleged victim's husband had consumed a lot of alcohol and was driven home by his friend, the accused.
Mr Sammon said the woman became very distressed when she discovered it was not her husband and went downstairs to the car where he was sleeping. Her husband "came to himself slowly" and, when he eventually took in what she said, he got a knife from the kitchen and inflicted what was a life-threatening injury on the accused.
The now 38-year-old alleged victim said she woke to find the accused having sexual intercourse with her. She pushed him off her and asked where her husband was. The accused said he was outside in the car and she ran down crying. She said she shook her husband awake and he responded in a bit of a daze. He followed her into the kitchen and she saw the accused move towards their sitting room.
She began shouting at him to leave their house. Her husband was looking at the two of them and he asked the accused what he had done. The accused said he had done nothing. The woman told Mr Sammon she then went upstairs and had a bath. Her husband came to the bathroom door and handed her their breadknife, which was bloodstained.
The hearing continues.