A woman has told the Central Criminal Court she was in shock and could not believe what had happened after she was allegedly raped by three men in a hotel car park after going for drive with them.
On her second day in the witness box the woman, who was 17 at the time, described how the day after the alleged assaults she was unable to go to work because she could not stop crying.
She was giving evidence in the trial of three men who have pleaded not guilty to raping her on 20 December 2017.
The jury was told the alleged offences took place after the girl got into a car with a friend who said they were going for drive with some boys.
Describing what happened after she got home that night, the woman told prosecuting counsel Alice Fawsitt SC that she was "in shock and could not believe what had happened".
The following day she was due to go to work, but had to search for early opening chemists nearby so she could get the morning after pill.
After getting the pill from a chemist she went to a friend's house and turned off her phone and was unable to go to work as she "could not stop crying".
The woman said she was later contacted by her mother who was worried when she discovered she had not been in work that day and that her phone had been switched off.
She later had a conversation with her mother, which resulted in her being examined at a sexual assault treatment unit and making a statement to gardaÃ.
She confirmed she had also handed over the clothes she had been wearing that night to gardaÃ.
Asked why she had waited until 27 December to make a statement to gardai, she replied: "I was just afraid."
She confirmed that she had gone on Facebook and done a number of searches in order to be able to give names to gardaÃ.
In her evidence to the court yesterday the woman said she got into the car with the boys because she did not want her friend going alone.
She said the car was later driven to the grounds of a hotel and one of the defendants did not listen to her when she refused to have sex. She went on to describe how the three men had sex with her one after the other.
The first defendant, who is now aged 22, has pleaded not guilty to one count of rape and one count of sexual assault.
A second defendant, now aged 23, has pleaded not guilty to one count of rape, one count of oral rape and two counts of sexual assault.
The third defendant, now aged 22, has pleaded not guilty to one count of rape and one count of oral rape.
The trial before Ms Justice Melanie Greally and a jury is expected to last a number of weeks.
Culled from rte.ie
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