A RAPE TRIAL has been shown video footage of the complainant in the case and a man who is not on trial having a sexual encounter in a B&B hallway some hours after she was allegedly raped.

Prior to the footage being played in the Central Criminal Court trial, Ms Justice Caroline Biggs told jurors they may find the video “intrusive” and “distressing”. “I apologise for that,” she said.

But she said it had been agreed that the footage in question needed to be played. The court heard the video footage showed “sexual matters” between the complainant and a second man who is not on trial.

The accused man in the case is a 33-year-old Louth man who has pleaded not guilty to one count of raping the woman in Dublin city centre in the early hours of 1 January 2019. He can’t be named for legal reasons.

The then-19-year-old woman was a Spanish tourist who was in Dublin on the night in question to see the New Year’s Eve fireworks display when she got separated from her friend.

It is the State’s case that the accused man raped the woman on a street in the Dublin Castle area in circumstances where the woman didn’t consent and was unable to consent due to the effects of alcohol or another drug.

The court has heard that after the alleged rape, the woman walked through town with the accused man before she came into the company of a couple who tried to help her find her accommodation.

When the woman from that couple left, the woman told the court she asked the second man to help her find a hotel and they went to a B&B. The woman told the court she was afraid and the man was “very persistent” and kept kissing her. She said they had anal sex, that it was very sore and she persuaded him to stop.

It was CCTV footage of this sexual encounter in a hallway of the B&B that was played to the jury yesterday while the woman was under cross-examination from defence counsel. The video was about 40 minutes long.

The court has heard that after the woman and the second man left the B&B together, the woman eventually found her accommodation and the man left.

She said that when she woke up the next day, “I realised I had two rapes and there might be a medical issue with that”. She then went to hospital.

The jury has been told that no charge has been brought against the second man.

Explaining the decision to play the footage, Ms Justice Biggs told the jury the woman had an issue with the footage being played “as you can understand” and would not be present in court for it.

She said while the footage related to a separate incident not before the court, “it is an incident that is relatively proximate to the allegations against (the accused man) in the company of somebody she met that night”.

The judge said that while the court had to take the complainant’s right to privacy into account, “the accused has a constitutional right to have evidence put before you”.

“When it comes down to it, it is my view it has to be played,” the judge said.

After the footage was played in the absence of the complainant, she returned to the witness box to continue being cross-examined on it by defence counsel.

Under questioning from Padraig Dwyer SC, defending, the woman agreed through a Spanish interpreter that she was saying she had been raped by both the accused man and the second man.

“The reason I’m asking you about the second man is to show that your word is not reliable in relation to what is rape,” defence counsel said.

“There’s a big difference between the incident with the first man and the second man,” the woman replied, adding: “One rape can be very different from another rape.”

Dwyer asked the woman: “Having watched the video of the second man, are you still standing over the assertion that the sexual interaction with him was rape?”

“Yes, because it was under coercion,” the woman replied.

The trial was due to finish by this Friday, but Ms Justice Biggs told the jury that it is set to run into next week.

She discharged one juror due to the fact that they are scheduled to travel next week and excused them for serving on a jury for life.

The trial continues before the judge with 11 jurors.