A young mother told a jury she was terrified to find a neighbour in her bed at about 4 o'clock in the morning. Sometime earlier, she thought her youngest daughter had crawled into her bed until a freezing hand on her stomach woke her.
"I will never forget his icy-cold hand on my stomach," the woman told Judge Patrick McCartan and the jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
A 23-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting the woman on September 16th, 1996, in her home.
The accused told the jury in evidence he had been drinking heavily all during the previous day up to the early hours of September 16th. He was chased by a gang of youths near his home and was unaware until he was wakened that he was not in his own house.
He denied in reply to his counsel, Mr Michael O'Higgins, he had said to the woman it would be all right and he would not hurt her.
A garda told prosecuting counsel, Mr Conor Devally, the accused made a statement after his arrest the following night. He described getting into a bed in the house and falling asleep. He did not remember anyone else being in the bed and the next thing he was aware of was being put out of the house.
Earlier, the woman told Mr Devally she had gone to bed about 1.30 a.m. on her own. She slept on the outside of the double-bed and was startled sometime later to feel a cold hand on her stomach.
She recognised the accused and ran to her son's room. She asked her son to get the accused out of the house and said not to hurt him.
The woman denied in cross-examination by Mr O'Higgins she was mistaken about his hand on her stomach. She could not say if he was asleep in her bed for some time and was not aware he was very drunk causing him to blackout.
The woman's son recalled her telling him she had had "some kind of weird dream" about someone getting into her bed. She thought it was a daughter but found it was someone much bigger. She asked him to put the accused out.
The hearing continues today.