Spanish tourist allegedly raped in Dublin city centre felt ‘like a doll’, court hears, The trial resumes on Monday, before Ms Justice Caroline Biggs, when the woman is expected to be cross-examined by defence counsel.

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21/02/2025 | 17:47 PM

A Spanish tourist who was allegedly raped in Dublin city centre while celebrating New Year’s Eve six years ago has told a jury she felt “like a doll” with no strength in her body.

A 33-year-old Louth man has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to one count of rape on January 1st 2019. He can’t be named for legal reasons.t is the State’s case that the man raped the woman on a street in the Dublin Castle area and that the woman didn’t consent and was unable to consent due to the effects of alcohol or another drug. The man denies any wrongdoing.

Giving evidence through a Spanish interpreter on Friday, the complainant told Tony McGillicuddy SC, prosecuting, that she was standing outside a shop on the night in question when she got talking to a man.

The court has heard the woman had been in town to watch the fireworks that night when she got separated from her friend.

She said she didn’t remember who started the interaction. She wanted to find a bar where her friend was, the court heard.The woman said she recalled she and the man “walked loads” and she felt “very unstable and did hold on to his arm”. She said at some point they stopped walking and they were in a “dark” area that had big chains to some kind of entrance and parked cars.

“I was feeling quite unwell,” the woman told the court. “I was holding on to the person beside me quite strongly because I was unstable.”

She said she felt confused as they had not reached the bar she was looking for.

The woman said she was leaning against a wall so she wouldn’t fall and the first contact that she remembered with the man was something in her mouth that felt “unpleasant”.The woman said she felt “like a doll”. “I didn’t have any strength in my body.”

The woman said she then remembered walking with the man and thinking: “I had sex with that man and I didn’t want to.”

She said her vagina was sore and she later had trouble extracting a tampon which she had in at the time.

The woman said a couple then approached her and asked her if she was okay before she went with them to find her apartment accommodation.