Woman Raped As She Slept, Court Told

A Swansea woman has described to a Crown Court jury how she was raped in a flat while she slept.She admitted she had slept with the accused’s cousin, but said she had not given consent for Robert O’Brien, from Port Talbot, to have sex with her.

O’Brien, aged 22, of Blodwen Street, denies rape on November 18 last year. The woman said she went to a friend’s flat in the city centre at around 9.30pm on November 17 and had three large vodkas before drinking four to five cans of lager at the Monkey Bar in Castle Street.

She left there at around 3am with her friend and others, and went to Ken Bu Khan club in Prince of Wales Road. There she was given and took a pill, which the court heard could have been an ecstasy tablet. She started talking to Tony O’Brien, and said that she liked him.

At around 6am she left to go back to her friend’s flat with the friend and some other people, including Tony O’Brien and Robert O’Brien, who she found out was his cousin, known as Alfie. After smoking a cannabis joint, she said she had sex with Tony O’Brien in the bedroom of the flat.

Tony left shortly afterwards after answering his phone. He said he would be back in 10 to 15 minutes. The woman said she was in bed, and her friend and Alfie had come into the room. Her friend then left, and she thought Alfie had as well. The woman said she fell asleep and then realised someone was having sex with her.

“I woke up and there was this figure over me,” she said. “There was a blanket over him like a mummy.” She described trying to get the duvet off him and kicking him in the chest before seeing that it was the man she knew as Alfie. She said that she had suffered bruising to her arms, wrist and leg, and had red marks on her neck. After confronting him, she punched him in the face, but he left the flat.

Prosecutor Dyfed Thomas asked her: “Did you agree at any time to have sexual intercourse with a man who called himself Alfie?” She replied: “No.”

Two men, who had also been in the flat, detained Robert O’Brien outside, and he was arrested shortly afterwards. He did not dispute in a police interview that intercourse had taken place, but he said it had been consensual. The case continues.