35-year-old man acquitted of rape in Tinder case

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

A 35-year-old man was found not guilty of raping a student he met on Tinder. The proceedings were reported on 2 June 2017.

He had denied the charge. The 31-year-old woman said he drove her to the Dublin mountains on their first date and raped her. She said they had arranged to meet on 11 September 2014.

Defence counsel Michael Bowman said retrieved messages showed the pair had arranged a hook-up and had consensual sex. The woman rejected the suggestion that the encounter was consensual.

Mr Bowman said she had returned to Tinder after the alleged rape and contacted six men in 36 hours. The woman said she went back on the app because she wanted to pretend it never happened.

Prosecuting counsel Alex Owens told the jury to judge the facts, not the woman's behaviour in taking a risk. In his charge, Mr Justice Paul Butler said what happened in the car was down to one person's word against another. The jury returned its verdict after almost four hours of deliberation.