Man who cannot be named pleads not guilty to rape

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

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to one count of rape. The charge concerns an alleged rape at an apartment in Dublin in the early hours of 28 September 2008. The proceedings were reported on 14 October 2016.

Psychiatrist Catherine Crowe, director of a sleep clinic based at the Mater Hospital, told Hugh Hartnett SC, defending, that the alleged rape was “more likely” an episode of sleep sex. She said the accused had a history of sleepwalking, night terrors and sexsomnia.

She met the accused in October 2010 and diagnosed parasomnia, including sexsomnia, after considering clinical investigations, his history, a sleep diary and home videos. She said he had sexsomnia before the alleged rape and, according to his former girlfriend, continued to have sleep sex afterwards.

Dr Crowe said she had not been present during the alleged incident and it was for the court to decide what happened.

She agreed with Paddy McGrath SC, prosecuting, that the allegation was a serious violation of the complainant and that the complainant neither initiated nor consented to sex. She said the accused was the instigator.

She accepted she had not known the complainant’s evidence when compiling her report, but said hearing it had not changed her conclusion.

Dr Crowe accepted this was the trial’s only evidence of full penetrative sex, but suggested the complainant’s sleep deprivation and alcohol consumption could explain why she took time to wake. She also accepted the complainant described a conversation unlike the other sexsomnia episodes. She said his being awake minutes afterwards was not significant; the issue was whether he was awake at penetration.

The trial continued before Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and a jury of eight men and four women.