Man denies rape charge

A Cork woman has told the Central Criminal Court that a man who offered her and her friends a lift home drove her to a lonely…

A Cork woman has told the Central Criminal Court that a man who offered her and her friends a lift home drove her to a lonely beach where he forced her to perform oral sex. A married man (34) denies raping the woman under section 4 of the Criminal Law Rape Amendment Act 1990 at Clay castle Beach, Youghal, Co Cork, on June 13th, 1998.

Mr John Edwards SC told a jury that the accused man offered the woman and two of her friends a lift home after talking to her outside a chip shop in Cork city. The woman said he left her friends home first after passing her aunt's house and told her he would drop her off on the way back.

Asked by Mr Edwards whether she had agreed to any of the events at the beach, she replied: "No. I said `no' clearly." The trial continues before Mr Justice Carney.