Donegal rape trial reaches closing stages

The jury in the trial of a teenager accused of raping a schoolmate in Co Donegal has been told that the complainant’s injuries were not consistent with a voluntary sexual encounter.
In his closing speech, at the trial in the Central Criminal Court, prosecution counsel Patrick McGrath SC suggested that the injuries to the girl were “not consistent with a willing, voluntary sexual encounter, but injuries consistent with the violent, unwilling, forced sexual encounter described by the complainant”.
Mr McGrath said the complainant had been consistent throughout that she never consented to sex or oral sex.
The accused, aged 19 has denied one count of rape and another of oral rape of the then 16-year-old girl outside a building in the early hours of March 18th, 2016.
Mr McGrath said this was a difficult case but evidence stacked up against the accused.
Michael O’Higgins SC, defending, told the jury the “devil is in the detail”.
He submitted that there were significant gaps in the complainant’s memory and that her DNA on the condom wrapper supported his client’s evidence that there had been digital penetration.
Mr O’Higgins referred to a CCTV recording of the teenagers and suggested it was “a devastating piece of footage with respect to the credibility of the (complainant).
The trial heard a garda filed a report to the DPP, describing how the complainant did not appear to be “overtly upset” in the footage.
He asked the jury to consider if it made any sense that the complainant said she engaged in consensual kissing with his client after the alleged oral rape.
The trial has reached closing stages.