By Dylan O'Sullivan-
Lawyers for Ireland and Ulster rugby players Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding yesterday grilled the alleged rape victim in a tense cross examination that had her sometimes looking unconvincing and fighting for credibility.
The woman who will remain anonymous throughout this tense case now in its third week, was accused of using the third person instead of the first person, as her character was routinely questioned by the competent barristers for the rugby stars.
During an interesting and tense moment of her cross-examination, Mr Harvey asked why, when she was recalling what happened to her, she used the term “you” instead of “I”, to which she said: “I am trying to make it applicable to everyone.”One of the most notable moments in this riveting rape case was the admission by the alleged victim that during one of the alleged sexual assaults when three other girls were downstairs, she did not call for help because she ”froze”. This admission will not do her case any favours.
Mr Harvey asked her: “If you called out for help or assistance, it would have been heard by the three girls downstairs.”
As she started to reply by saying “that’s not how you react when you have been raped”, the barrister interrupted and said she was using the term “you” instead of “I” again.
At this point, she said: “Mr Harvey, I am not going to argue with you about grammar. You are not going to put words in my mouth, thank you very much.”
The woman denied suggestions she had “sex with a number of men after going to their home without an invitation, but insisted she was raped by the defendant who denies sexual intercourse even took place between them.
One of the most notable moments in this riveting rape case was the admission by the alleged victim that during one of the sexual assaults when three other girls were downstairs, she did not call for help because she ”froze”.
As the trial at Belfast Crown Court entered its third week, the fight for victory got deeper as the lawyers used their best skills to discredit the complainant.
25 year old Mr Jackson of Oakleigh Park in Belfast, and 24 year old Mr Olding of Ardenlee Street in the city, have been charged with rape, while Mr Jackson is facing a further charge of sexual assault. They deny all the charges.
A third man – Blane McIlroy (26), from Royal Lodge Road in Belfast – denies exposing himself during the same incident.
Rory Harrison (25), from Manse Road in Belfast, also denies perverting the course of justice and withholding information.
The alleged victim was cross-examined by Mr McIlroy’s barrister Arthur Harvey, in her seventh day in the witness box, and he accused her of moving from” truth to untruth, or falsehood to self delusion”. Insinuating an unreliable memory “clouded by drink or an unwillingness to acknowledge what happened”, Mr Harvey suggested that her memory of the evening – including a consensual kiss with Jackson and the “alleged rape” – was “fractured”.
Asked whether her memory was ”frayed and ragged throughout this whole incident, from the beginning of the evening to the end of the evening”, she conceded: “I wouldn’t use the words fractured or frayed, but yes, they are slightly hazy.
“There are moments that I can’t remember. No-one remembers exact moments from a night out. You can’t be expected to remember each thing you have done.”
The 21-year-old claimed Mr Jackson and then Mr Olding subjected her to a serious sexual assault in the bedroom of Mr Jackson’s home in the early hours of June 28 2016 after a night out at Ollie’s nightclub in the city centre.
She also alleged that after being raped by the team mates, Mr McIlroy walked naked into the bedroom.
When asked about getting a taxi outside Ollie’s, and how exactly she ended up at Mr Jackson’s home, she again accepted she couldn’t remember everything – but said she believed she was invited back by three girls.
Telling the woman that the girls didn’t invite her back, Mr Harvey said: “I suggest you have the capacity to start off with a basic fact such as ‘I was in the taxi’ to create a narrative which you believe personally serves the case you are seeking to make.”
The jury has already heard that the woman, who was 19 at the time had a consensual kiss with Mr Jackson in his bedroom before going back downstairs to the party.
She claims that a short time later she went upstairs to retrieve her bag – and that’s when she was raped.
Mr Harvey also questioned the woman about texts she sent to her friends in the aftermath of the alleged rape.
In one, she told a friend that the three girls at the party were displaying slutty behaviour.
She has given evidence that she felt the “mood shifted” at the party when Mr McIlroy started pulling the girls onto his knee and taking selfies.
When she told Mr Harvey that sitting on boys’ knees and taking selfies was “not something I was interested in”. However the barrister probed her by asking: “Being upstairs in a bedroom indicates behaviour which is more proper than three girls taking selfies – is that what you are saying?”
She replied: “Those are not my words, they are yours.”
When the barrister asked again “Is that what you are saying?”, she responded: “I am saying I didn’t want to take photographs sitting on those guys’ knees.”.
Mr Harvey then said “Those photographs are of three girls saying ‘look at me’, it’s nothing more than that, isn’t that right?”, to which she replied “Yes.” The barrister lawyer then asked her to re-iterate her account to both medics and police about Mr McIlroy’s behaviour in the bedroom.
The woman said he appeared in the doorway, naked and holding his penis, and at this point she got off the bed, pushed past him and fled.
When Mr Harvey presented a very different version of events to her, in which she instigated sexual activity with Mr McIlroy and performed oral sex on him “for a short period”, she replied: “None of that ever happened. I don’t know why your client is stating that it did.”
The barrister further said at one point that Mr McIlroy left the room to look for condoms, she answered: “None of that happened. Mr Harvey, I was raped. This is a rape case. If Mr McIlroy had touched me I think I would have made that abundantly clear to police.” As the case draws to a close, the question for the jury will be who they believe, the accused or the defendant. The defendant has no independent witness, and her legal representatives have not achieved getting the defendants to contradict themselves or say anything incriminating. A verdict is at the doors, and unless the jury are convinced she was raped, this may just turn out to have been a long judicial exercise.