A WOMAN wept as she told a Royal Court jury that she was raped while asleep by a man she had met that night in a St Helier pub.
The alleged victim told a jury that 67-year-old Thomas Quinn had ‘turned my life upside down’.
The woman was giving evidence on the first day of a trial in the Royal Court of Mr Quinn, who denies the charge of rape.
She said she had been out with friends but after an argument had left on her own and stopped at the Kitty O’Shea’s pub in the Parade ‘to cool off’.
She admitted that she had been drinking wine on an empty stomach on the evening of the alleged attack last year, and was very drunk by the time she met Mr Quinn.
Answering questions from Crown Advocate Simon Thomas, prosecuting, the woman said she had recognised Mr Quinn as a customer at the business where she worked. She said: ‘I waved to get his attention and gave him a hug.’
She sobbed as she added: ‘I was just happy to see someone I knew. I didn’t think he would do what he did.’
CCTV footage was shown of Mr Quinn taking the woman back to his flat, but she told the court she did not remember going there.
She said: ‘All I remember is waking up. It was dark and someone was on top of me, kissing me and having sex with me.
‘I didn’t know where I was or who I was with. I started freaking out and he climbed off.
‘He seemed panicked, like he realised he had done something wrong.’
The court heard Mr Quinn offered to call a taxi for her but she refused, gathered her belongings and left.
‘I didn’t want to wait for a taxi with someone who had just violated me,’ she said.
She reported the incident to the States police the following day and was sent to the sexual-assault referral centre at Dewberry House, where an examination revealed bruises to her arms and back and an injury in her genital area.
Blood and urine tests also showed an alcohol level 2½ times the legal drink-drive limit, several hours after the alleged incident, so Crown Advocate Thomas said: ‘Common sense says it would have been higher the night before.’
He added: ‘No one who is asleep or has passed out has the capacity to consent to have sex.’
Advocate James Bell, defending, pointed out that the woman had exchanged text messages with a friend at around the time she had been at Kitty O’Shea’s, so questioned her claim that she had been very drunk.
He said: ‘It was a coherent conversation that showed you were thinking straight.’
She replied: ‘I know what that man did to me. I was in no fit state. He has turned my life upside down.’
Asked why she had gone to his flat, she repeated that she could not remember going there but said: ‘Maybe I didn’t feel at risk at that point.’
She also denied that she was attracted to Mr Quinn or the suggestion that she had initiated sexual contact, saying: ‘I wouldn’t try it on with a man who’s older than my dad.’
The trial is expected to last three more days.
