Woman did not tell gardaí about time down lane with Tinder date

A woman who says she was attacked by a man she met on Tinder did not tell gardaí about eight minutes she spent with him in a car down a laneway before the alleged sexual assault happened, a court has heard.

The 36-year-old accused, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to sexually assaulting the woman, a foreign national, on the University College Dublin campus on July 23rd, 2014.

Garda Declan Ryan told the court that he interviewed the complainant on two occasions, on July 25th and July 28th, 2014.

He said that two days after the alleged attack he travelled to UCD with the complainant. He said she identified the Nova running pitch as the location of the alleged assault.

Garda Ryan said he later obtained CCTV footage from UCD showing the blue BMW driven by the accused on the night. The jury has previously watched this footage which shows the car driving into a laneway known as the “observatory”.

The footage shows the car leaving this area approximately eight minutes later. The car is then filmed by another camera driving up towards the Nova running pitch before driving off from this area about a minute later.

Garda Ryan told Paul Flannery SC, defending, that there was no discussion with the complainant about the eight minutes the car spent down the laneway.

Mr Flannery said that if the complainant "is to be believed" the car went down this laneway and turned around and drove back. He asked the witness how long he thought it would take to do this.

Garda Ryan said he could not say as it would depend on the standard of driving and how far the driver drove down. He told Paul Burns SC, prosecuting, that he never asked her about going down the laneway.

“The main location we were interested in was the Nova pitch where she alleged she was sexually assaulted,” he said.

Judge Cormac Quinn told the jury of six men and six women that evidence will finish on Wednesday and closing speeches will begin.