A medicine student who claimed she was raped by a fellow student has appealed against the dismissal of her High Court case alleging University College Dublin (UCD) failed to make adequate allowances relating to her studies.
The woman is also appealing an order requiring her to pay the university’s costs of defending the case.
The appeal is scheduled to be heard by the three-judge Court of Appeal on July 21st.
Her story entered the wider public domain after a report in UCD’s University Observer was raised in the Dáil in February by Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger.
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Coppinger’s statements and the report highlighted incidents where the woman’s “nude, bruised and unconscious” image, taken without her consent following an alleged violent rape, was shared with hundreds of college staff and students.
UCD reported to gardaí last year that a graphic photo of the woman was received by more than 170 academic staff and students on the evening of April 22nd, 2025. The emails were sent from anonymous, encrypted Proton addresses.
The image appeared again, in November and January last, in two student group chats. In November it was sent into a 300-member UCD students’ WhatsApp group, accompanied by deeply offensive language about the woman.
Seen by The Irish Times, the photo showed the woman’s pale, bruised, naked body, lying face up across a bed.
Creating, publishing, sharing or threatening to share intimate images without consent, known as image-based sexual abuse, is a crime under the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act 2020. A Garda investigation continues.
The woman told The Irish Times last month she was raped in February 2023 but she had not reported it to gardaí.
“I had worked so hard to get into medicine and was so focused on not letting the rape get in my way,” she said. “I had no control in that situation and focusing on my studies was a way of putting control on it, putting it away in a box.”
In May 2023, she was about to start her summer exams, but missed two of them and failed others as a result of issues arising from the alleged assault, she said.
She submitted a doctor’s letter to the university saying she had been unwell, but was refused an opportunity to re-sit the exams later in summer 2023.
The woman started High Court proceedings in July 2024 concerning her lack of academic progression and alleging the college’s approach to her failure to complete second-year modules prevented her progress to third year.
The case could not be reported in the context of the woman’s story until March due to strict court orders preventing identification of the university and the student.
Amid increasing criticism of UCD’s handling of the alleged image-based abuse, the university secured a variation on the court order which allowed for UCD to be identified, and to comment on the case, and for the case to be linked publicly with the woman.
In her judgment in February, Judge Marguerite Bolger sided with UCD on all grounds, finding the solutions offered by UCD to help the woman complete the failed modules were “entirely lawful and proper”.
Among the judge’s conclusions, she found the woman had encountered difficulties in university from the beginning of her first year, experienced “negative emotional wellbeing” and struggled with her education before February 2023.
The woman was offered two opportunities in 2024 and 2025 to re-sit the six modules she had not passed, but for “unconvincing” reasons had not re-sat them on these occasions, the judge said.
The woman’s view that she should not be prevented from progressing to third year, despite having six incomplete modules, was “groundless”, the judge held
While acknowledging the woman had “very traumatic experiences”, the judge said that “cannot dilute either the academic standards required of her or the school’s obligation to determine the achievement of learning outcomes necessary to allow progress to the next stage of the degree programme for which they are responsible”.
The woman’s appeal against the judgment is advanced on grounds including the judge’s decision contains errors of law.
