A man has been found guilty of kidnapping and sexual assaulting a teenage student in Dublin last year.
The jury at the Central Criminal Court also convicted him of aggravated sexual assault of the now 20-year-old woman on the same date, April 18th, 2000, at Richmond Hill, Rathmines.
Sid Ahmed Benflici (26), with an address at Stonelea Terrace, Bray, Co Wicklow, had denied five charges of false imprisonment, sexual assaults and aggravated sexual assault. He told the jury in evidence he had consensual sex with the student in his car after she accepted a lift from him. He claimed they danced earlier in the "Kitchen" disco in Temple Bar.
The jury, which spent one night in a hotel, returned its unanimous verdicts on the fifth day of the hearing after almost three hours. Mr Justice Barr directed that it could bring in majority verdicts of 11-1 or 102 on two remaining charges of sexual assault.
After a further two hours, the jury disagreed on one of the charges and found him not guilty on the other.
Beneflici had also claimed in evidence that his victim initiated the sexual activity.
The woman told the jury he locked her into his car after offering her a lift home. She said he then grabbed her by the neck and hit her on the face, and sexually assaulted her. She said when he finished a series of sexual assaults on her, he said: "If you were not so young, you would not have been so lucky."