A man charged with rape has been found not guilty by direction of Mr Justice Butler at the Central Criminal Court after the alleged victim revealed she was now engaged to the accused.
The woman told the court she was no longer willing to give evidence against her fiancé and revealed she had written previously to the Director of Public Prosecutions and to the Garda saying she was withdrawing her complaint, but despite that the case went ahead to trial.
Mr Justice Butler described the case as unique and said he had seen cases where witnesses had changed their testimony, but he had not come across a case where the witness was engaged to be married to the accused.
He apologised to the jury after directing it to deliver a verdict of not guilty against the accused who had been charged with one count of oral rape and one of threatening to kill the woman on May 17th, 2002.
The five men and seven women in the jury, which had been sworn in earlier in the day before Mr Justice Carney, heard in the opening statement by Mr Paul O'Higgins SC, prosecuting, that the complainant and the accused had been living together when the alleged incident took place.
Mr O'Higgins said the complainant came home early in the morning to find the accused awake in bed. They had got into a row shortly afterwards, and the jury would hear the details of that row later when the complainant gave her evidence.
He said it was claimed by her in a statement to gardaí that the accused then left the room and returned with a knife and raped her orally at knifepoint.
When Mr O'Higgins called her to the witness box, however, she said she wanted to address Mr Justice Butler before proceeding with the evidence. "I have been trying to withdraw the charges. Last summer I sent letters to the DPP and to gardaí, trying to withdraw my statement," she said.
When Mr Justice Butler asked her for a reason she replied: "We are engaged to be married."
Mr Justice Butler heard during the discussion with Mr Mill Arden SC, defending, and with Mr O'Higgins in the absence of the jury, that she had also written to the defence solicitor saying she was withdrawing the complaint and would refuse to give evidence against the accused.
The judge sent the jury out and decided in its absence that he had no choice but to direct a not-guilty verdict as, in the absence of the woman's evidence, the DPP had no further evidence to build a case on.