A woman who was allegedly raped by her husband on Christmas Day in 2003 has denied they had consensual sex.
The 44-year-old Dublin man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to two counts of rape, one count of oral rape and one count of anal rape of his then-wife on December 25th, 2003.
The trial has heard the man allegedly raped the woman on the couch after he put their young children to bed on Christmas night. She said she had about seven glasses of wine over the course of the day and fell asleep on the couch.
She said she woke up to him pulling gently on her shoulder before he forced himself on her. She said she repeatedly told him: “No” but that he replied: “It’s okay” and “I’ve waited a long time for this” before anally raping her.
The woman has told the trial that she eventually managed to push him away and went to bed, before confronting him the next morning and asking him: “Why?”. She said he replied, “I don’t know”.
During cross-examination, defence counsel Patrick Gageby SC put it to the woman that there was “no truth in the allegation that he sexually assaulted you in any way”.
He put it to the woman that the man came downstairs after putting the children to bed and “indeed fondled you and there was no objection by you to that”.
The woman denied this.
Mr Gageby also put it to the woman that her husband asked her for oral sex but she refused. He submitted they had “consensual vaginal intercourse and that’s all”.
The woman denied this was the case, saying, “He didn’t ask me anything.”
Mr Gageby put it to the woman that what happened was a “different class of event to what you have described”.
“The following morning, you suggested to him that he had sexually assaulted you and that was the first time you ever made any intimation to him that what happened was against your will or without your consent,” he said.
The woman rejected this, saying she repeatedly told her husband “No” throughout the alleged incident.
“No means no,” she said. “He should have known that was without my consent.”
She denied being drunk that night, but said she was tipsy. “Even if it was drunken sex, no means no,” she said.
The man eventually left the marital home, returned for some time and left again. The trial has heard varying accounts as to when exactly that happened. The couple legally separated in 2007.
The woman denied that she had sexual relations with her husband after the alleged rape. She said they tried to have sex on a couple of occasions but she could not go through with it.
The woman told the court that the day after the alleged attack, she booked a two-night hotel break for herself, her husband and the children.
She said she “needed to get away”.
Mr Gageby put it to the woman that the trip would “throw the two of you together a lot”. The court heard the couple stayed in the same room with their children but slept in separate beds. The woman said she slept in a bed with the children while her husband slept in a camp bed.
She said the trip happened “very soon after the attack”. “I was still in shock,” she said, adding she was “trying to keep everything as normal as possible for the kids”.
She said she confided in a friend about the rape on New Year’s Eve, a week later. The woman’s friend gave evidence that the woman told her her husband had “forced himself on her and had anal sex with her”.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury of eight women and four men.