Derry man goes on trial charged with raping teenage girl in Spanish hotel
First case of its kind in the North being heard at city's Crown Court
In the first prosecution of its kind in the North, a 35-years-old local man has gone on trial at city's Crown Court charged with raping a 17-years-old Derry girl in a Spanish hotel during the summer of 2014.The prosecuting barrister in the case, John Orr Q.C., told the jurors that the case was unusual in that it was an extra-terrestrial case brought under Article 76 of the 2008 Sexual Offences Order which allowed for offences which allegedly occur outside of the U.K. to be brought before a court in the U.K.
The defendant, Michael Joseph Cregan, from Ferguson Street in the Bishop Street area of the city, denies raping the girl in a bedroom which they shared with two other people in the Hotel Los Alamos inTorremolinos near Malaga in Spain between July 31 and August 20 2014.
Mr. Orr told the jury that the hotel was where a party of six, all of them from Derry, went on holiday together. The party of six included the alleged victim and the defendant, the complainant's sister and her sister's then partner, the girl's father and a male family friend.
The alleged victim's father and his male friend shared one apartment. A second apartment was shared by the defendant, the girl as well as her sister and then partner. The court was told the apartment had three single beds and the girl slept in one of them and her sister, her sister's then partner and the defendant pushed the other two beds together and slept in them.
Mr. Orr told the seven men and five women on the jury there were no photographs of the hotel because since this incident allegedly occurred, the hotel owner was declared bankrupt "and the hotel is now like a building site."
The prosecutor said in June 2016, two years after the group had gone on holiday, the alleged victim attended her sister's 30th birthday party at which one of the guests at the party was the defendant.
"When she saw him at the party it brought things back and she decided to go to the police", Mr. Orr said.
The prosecutor said like many summer holidays in the sun, this holiday involved the consumption of alcohol.He said the group, having spent the second last day of the holiday by the hotel pool, went out drinking.
"She became shaky on her feet and was brought back to the hotel by the defendant. She remembers waking up in bed after a short time and the defendant was on top of her with his penis inside her", Mr. Orr said.The trial continues.