Rape trial involving 38-year-old taxi driver begins at Derry Crown Court

A 38-year-old taxi driver has gone on trial at Derry Crown Court charged with raping a drunk female passenger in the back seat of his taxi in the city on the night of October 31, 2022.

The defendant Paul Francis O'Doherty from Farland Way in the Hazelbank area of the city, denies vaginally and orally raping the then 19-year-old woman and also denies two other charges of sexually assaulting her.

Opening the case to a jury of eight men and four women, prosecution barrister Geraldine McCullough KC said the defendant denied the allegations during three police interviews but when D.N.A. evidence linked him to forensic swabs taken from the complainant he made a defence statement that the sexual activity was initiated by and consented to by the complainant.

Ms. McCullough said the defendant was engaged to be married at the time of the allegations and "he was frightened of the consequences if made public". She said the forensic analyses of the swabs taken from the complainant showed that the D.N.A. linked the defendant to the incident by a ratio of one billion to one.

The prosecutor said the complainant, who was three and a half times over the legal alcohol limit for driving at the time of the alleged incidents, was dressed in a boxer's outfit on Halloween night and that her friends paid the defendant £10 to take her home.

She said in her statement to the police the complainant said the defendant stopped his taxi close to her home before he raped and sexually assaulted her.

Ms. McCullough said the complainant told the police that she froze, sobbed and cried during the alleged ordeal and tried to push the defendant away.

After the incident the defendant allegedly told the complainant "I know you enjoyed it" and asked her "if it was good".

The defendant allegedly threw the complainant's shoes and clothing out of his taxi and called her "no good".

The prosecutor said the following day the complainant told her girlfriend, her mother and her sister before reporting her allegations to the police.

When the allegations were put to the defendant he described them as "madness" and said he could not account for bruises and abrasions found on the complainant.

The prosecutor said in a defence statement, the defendant said the complainant fell off the rear seat in his taxi on the journey, hit her head off a Covid screen and refused to wear a seatbelt.

The defendant in his statement said the complainant said to him "stop the taxi, come into the back seat and I will give you a b*****b". He said she then unzipped his jeans and gave him oral sex.

The trial continues before Judge Neil Rafferty KC.