Court told alleged rape victim got State abortion aid

A then 15-year-old alleged rape victim travelled to England for an abortion assisted by the then South Eastern Health Board, …

A then 15-year-old alleged rape victim travelled to England for an abortion assisted by the then South Eastern Health Board, the Central Criminal Court heard yesterday.

The now 18-year-old Zambian woman gave evidence yesterday at the trial of a man accused of raping her. She denied that she had a traditionally arranged marriage in Zambia with the man before coming to Ireland.

The 46-year-old man has pleaded not guilty before Mr Justice Barry White to four charges of raping her at an address in a Co Wexford town and one charge of raping her at an unknown address in Dublin.

He has also pleaded not guilty to two charges of anally raping another girl, then 13 years old, at the same addresses between November 20th and December 7th, 2002.

READ MORE

The 18-year-old woman told Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, prosecuting, how a friend of her father had arranged an introduction to the accused shortly before she had travelled to Ireland from Zambia on false passports in November 2002.

She said they then travelled to Wexford where she alleges a few days after they arrived he locked her into a room, tore off her clothes and raped her, while she cried and pleaded with him to let her go.

The following week they had travelled to an unknown address in Dublin where she was raped again by the accused.

She said when she cried afterwards the accused called her "a villager" and had told her "people in Ireland sleep with people not their husbands or wives or partner".

She alleged a further three rapes on their return to Wexford, which, she said, all happened on the same day. The accused had not used a condom during any of the rapes, she said.

She told the court that on December 9th, 2002, she "ran away" from the house in Wexford with the younger girl and they went to a Garda station.

They had been placed in foster care and she subsequently found she was pregnant. She had travelled to England with the help of the then South Eastern Health Board and had the pregnancy terminated.

She said she did not have a clear recollection of this time as she had been "very upset". She denied a suggestion in cross-examination by Mr Tom O'Connell SC, defence counsel, that she had a traditional arranged marriage with the accused and said that she was at school at the time and was not thinking of marriage.

She also denied that she had sex with the accused after the ceremony in Zambia before travelling to Ireland.