Court hears dog walker helped woman in wake of alleged attack

A dog walker has described coming to the assistance of a student who alleges she was attacked by a man she met on Tinder.

The 36-year-old Dublin man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to sexual assault of the foreign national at UCD campus, Belfield, south Dublin, on July 23rd, 2014.

Criona Cullen told Paul Burns SC, prosecuting, that she was out walking her dogs around the campus at about 10pm that night.

She said a woman, with a poor grasp of English, called to her “can you help me”. She asked the woman if she was hurt and the woman explained she had met a man on Tinder and he had brought her to the campus but she did not know where she was.

Ms Cullen said the woman told her she had been in a car with the man and he had tried to have sex with her but she did not want to. Ms Cullen said the woman told her she had managed to get away.

Taxi from campus

She said she told the woman she would help her and offered to either organise to get her home from her house or help her get a taxi from the campus.

“She had no idea where she was. She said she wanted to go home,” Ms Cullen said.

The witness said she hailed down a taxi for the woman. She gave her phone number to the taxi driver and told him if there was any issue with the woman being unable to pay for the fare, she was happy to pay it.

A flatmate of the complainant told the trial he met her in the taxi when it arrived at their building in Dublin city centre. He said she seemed really scared and afraid.

“Something serious had happened. She said that a guy tried to rape her,” the man said.

He told Paul Flannery SC, defending, that his flatmate told him the man had taken her to “an abandoned area”.

The trial continues before Judge Cormac Quinn and a jury of six men and six women.