Woman may have invented rape claim because she felt spurned by Sean Gallagher from Theale, jury told
Update: Jury acquits Sean Gallagher on all charges:https://premium.newburytoday.co.uk/news/not-guilty-jury-clears-man-of-rape-charge-9436191/
A WOMAN may have cried rape because she felt scorned, a jury has heard.
The complainant, who met the accused via an online dating app, claimed she was brutally raped, told to shut up and strangled until she gasped for breath.
But a jury sitting at Reading Crown Court heard she later conceded she had changed positions during sex.
And, despite claims of being bruised all over, no physical injuries were apparent, the court heard.
In the dock was 25-year-old Sean Gallagher, of Church Street, Theale, who denies rape, sexual assault and intentional strangulation in the Reading postal area on a specific date in 2023.
Click here for the woman’s account: https://premium.newburytoday.co.uk/news/woman-claims-she-was-raped-by-man-she-met-on-dating-app-9435843/
Mr Gallagher told jurors they had enjoyed “rough sex” by consent and that he was horrified to have been accused of any wrongdoing.
Kate Blackwell, defending, told jurors: “One thing’s for certain - there are no winners here.”
She said her client’s life had been turned upside down; that he had waited two-and-a-half years for his day in court and that he had had to inform his employers that he was facing the charges.
Ms Blackwell asked jurors: “There were only two people present in that room - how do you decide?
“You weren’t there.
“You’ve been asked [by the prosecution] why would she make it up?
“That’s not for Mr Gallagher to answer.”
But, Ms Blackwell suggested, the woman may have been offended by his decision to rejoin his friends in a bar after sex, instead of staying as she might have wished.
She went on: “She agreed she might have been into elements of rough sex - hair pulling and choking.
“We don’t say a woman can’t change her mind…even during sex - but that’s not what happened here.”
Ms Blackwell reminded jurors that the woman had not told police, as she had later conceded, that the pair had changed positions during sex - an act which implied “a degree of co-operation,” she suggested.
She turned to the prosecution assertion that an immediate complaint had been made to police and said: “That’s not true.
“The 999 call was made about two hours after Mr Gallagher left.
“[In the meantime] was she becoming more and more angry because he was unkind to her and patronising and hadn’t agreed to stay the night?
“The [text messages to her friend] showed she didn’t want the police called…but the friend was having none of it - ‘you’ve got to call the police.’
“What could [the complainant] say but yes?
“She couldn’t turn round and say ‘I might have exaggerated what was going on.’
“Once that snowball had started rolling downhill it was almost impossible to say: ‘I wasn’t telling the truth.’
“There’s no mention to police [in her initial statement] that she liked rough sex or that they had spoken about it before; that they had changed positions or that she had had an orgasm.”
The complainant told jurors that Mr Gallagher had ripped her clothing off, damaging the elastic.
But Ms Blackwell said police had found no physical evidence of such damage.
In addition, the reported bruises “all over” her body were contradicted by photographic evidence, she added, and nor was there any bruising on her neck.
Ms Blackwell asked: “If she’s exaggerating about what, what else is she exaggerating about?”
The jury was told Mr Gallagher was a hard working man of good character and Ms Blackwell concluded: “He deserves a lot of credit for being the man he is - a good man.
“You cannot be sure she wasn’t consenting…everything suggests she was.
“If she was consenting, even reluctantly, at the time, that’s not rape - and he is not guilty.”
Jurors are currently considering their verdicts.
