Ireland and Ulster rugby player Paddy Jackson took the stand in Belfast today and denied forcing a woman to have sex with him or restraining her in anyway.
Mr Jackson has been taking the jury through the events of a night out and house party shortly after his return from an Irish rugby tour in South Africa.
Mr Jackson is alleged, alongside his teammate Stuart Olding, to have raped a then 19-year-old student in his bedroom during a house party after the night out in Belfast in 2016.
Mr Jackson said he remembers leaving the room first after he and the complainant kissed. Photographs taken at the time show this was about 3.50am. He said a short time later in the living room he remembers her standing very close to him. She rubbed his arm. “I just thought it was her way of getting my attention again. It got my attention,” Mr Jackson said. He said he was attracted to her. He went back to his room and he thought she might follow him and they could “continue where we left off”. Mr Jackson said she followed him and denied following her up to the bedroom.
Mr Jackson denied asking his friend to say the woman was “fixated” on him during the night but that he would agree that she was.
He said he doesn’t remember shutting door after she entered. They started kissing again. He told counsel he didn’t use any force whatsoever. “I wouldn’t do that.”
Kissing
He said the kissing was consensual and “quite passionate”. She was biting his lip in a sore but playful manner, Mr Jackson said. He said she undid his trousers before performing oral sex on him.
Counsel asked what signs the woman showed that she was enjoying herself.
“She was doing it,” Mr Jackson responded. He said at his point Mr Olding entered the room.
“It was a bit embarrassing. I kind of smiled at him and waved at him. It was stupid,” Mr Jackson said. “It was kind of like ‘hi, look at us, look what’s happening.’”
He said Mr Olding came over and the woman’s “attention went to him then”.
He said he doesn’t have a clear memory of what they did but that he moved to the end of the bed.
Mr Jackson said he pulled her trousers down and started touching her with his hands. He told counsel he thought events were leading to penile penetration. He said the woman asked for a condom but he couldn’t find one. Mr Jackson said he thinks this happened while Mr Olding was in the room.
He did not have penile sex with her. “I continued to touch her with my hands.”
Counsel asked about the evidence of Dara Florence, a party guest who said she walked in on them. He said he remembers her coming in and him talking to her but doesn’t recall “asking her to join in”. He said Ms Florence is “mistaken” in her evidence that she saw him have penile intercourse with the complainant. He was “shocked” when he heard Ms Florence had said this but later, when he heard her give evidence in court, he could understand how she thought that.
He penetrated the woman with his fingers and noticed a little bit of blood, he said. “I just remember seeing it on my fingers... I thought it was something to do with her period.”
He said there was no sign the blood was associated with pain. He would have stopped and asked if she was okay if he thought she was in pain. There was no resistance from the woman to his inserting his hand or fingers inside her, he said. Nor was there any effort by her to move away.
Mr Jackson denies forcing the woman’s head towards Mr Olding’s penis. He also denied trying to force his fist inside the woman, calling the accusation “revolting” and “disgusting.”
He said he recalls Mr Olding getting up and leaving the room without saying anything.
Mr Jackson and the woman then lay on the bed together naked. “I thought the night was over and that she was staying.”
He said they continued touching each other but “the night was ending”.
By this point he was “knackered” and “drunk” but very happy to be in his own bed. He said he thinks he fell asleep and then woke to see the woman at the end of the bed getting dressed.
Mr Jackson said he got up and said something to the woman, but doesn’t remember what. “This part of the night was quite confusing, it still is now,” he said, adding he was drunk and tired.
He walked past the complainant and downstairs to check the house and switch off the lights. He said when he was in the living room he saw the woman leaving. She did not seem upset. “If I’d seen she was upset I would have gone to check on her.”
Mr Jackson told the jury earlier he was “drunk, tired and still recovering” from the game when he was out that night with his friends.
He told the court he was looking forward to getting home and resuming day-to-day life after being on tour with Ireland. He denied to counsel he used his name to secure someone else’s taxi. He said he has “never, ever” done this and would be embarrassed if he did.
He said he was drunk but remembers leaving Ollie’s nightclub and going home. He didn’t know the three women who shared his taxi. When they got back to his house he told everyone to grab a drink if they wanted one. Someone put on music and they started “having a laugh”, Mr Jackson said.
Smiling
His first contact with the complainant was smiling at her when he noticed she was looking at him, he said. He didn’t know who she was but had no problem with her being there. They “had a few conversations”, he told the court.
He said he didn’t think it was strange at the time that she was looking at him, Mr Jackson told counsel.
He said he noticed the complainant’s attention was “very much focused on me”. They were flirting and she followed him to the kitchen a few times.
He got the impression she liked him and said he “liked her back.” He said he went up to his room and that a small part of him thought “she might follow me upstairs”.
She came into the room and they both sat on the edge of his bed. They started “open mouth kissing”. Mr Jackson denies he “lunged” at the woman.
He said she asked him what her name was and he didn’t respond. It was awkward as he didn’t know her name. She asked him again. “I think she wanted a personal test of if I knew what her name was. It was awkward when I didn’t.”
He said he took from it that “there was no more kissing until I knew what her name was”.
He wanted to go downstairs, back to where everyone was singing and dancing. He returned downstairs.
Mr Jackson told his counsel, Brendan Kelly QC, the woman did not say "no" at any stage during this first incident. He also said he did not try to undo her trousers. "She didn't say no at any stage."
Taking the stand this morning to give evidence in his own defence, Mr Jackson told jurors he is not a violent person and had never hit anyone. He was being questioned by his counsel Brendan Kelly QC. Prosecuting counsel Toby Hedworth can then cross-examine him.
Mr Jackson also detailed his early life and schooling as well as his rugby career to date. He took the jury through his charity work and his hobbies, which he said included miming to rap songs and drawing pictures of super heroes and his dog.
This morning the jury at Laganside Crown Court in Belfast were told Mr Jackson had decided to take the stand in his own defence. The trial is in its sixth week but has not sat this week until today because a juror was sick.
Questioning of Mr Jackson is expected to last most of the day and may extend into Thursday.
Mr Jackson (26), of Oakleigh Park, Belfast has pleaded not guilty to rape and sexual assault at a party in his house in the early hours of June 28th, 2016. Mr Olding (24), of Ardenlee Street, Belfast, denies one count of rape on the same occasion. Both men contend the activity was consensual.
Blane McIlroy (26), of Royal Lodge Road, Ballydollaghan, Belfast, has pleaded not guilty to one count of exposure while Rory Harrison (25), from Manse Road, Belfast, pleaded not guilty to perverting the course of justice and withholding information relating to the incident.
The prosecution closed its cases last Thursday after five weeks of evidence. Judge Patricia Smyth told the jury the trial would now move into the defence stage when the accused men would have an opportunity to give evidence or call their own witnesses.
Mr Jackson said his co-accused, Mr McIlroy, stayed in his room that night. He didn’t see Mr McIlroy in his room at any point earlier in the night, he told counsel.
He said the next day one of the party guests who had stayed the night asked him if there had been “a threesome”. He said he did not want to talk about it as he did not feel comfortable. “I just wanted to shrug it off.”
Counsel went on to ask him about texts he exchanged with his friends in the following hours and days, many of which have been seen by the jury.
Mr Jackson said he and his friends were planning a holiday and trying to organise accommodation. They were exchanging messages in the “JACOME” WhatsApp group. The group’s name comes from the initials of the surnames of the eight members.
This group includes Mr Olding and Mr McIlroy but not Mr Harrison, he said. Asked about the nature of the group he said, “It tends to just be stupid, immature conversations.”
Counsel raised a text from Mr Olding which read: “We are all top shaggers”. Mr Jackson says he thought Mr Olding was referring to the whole group.
Counsel asked Mr Jackson what word they would use to describe sexual activity involving two men and a woman. “Spit-roasting or threesome,” Mr Jackson replied.
Referring to a text sent by Mr Jackson to the group, counsel asked him, “What did you mean “there was a lot of spit-roast that night’?” Mr Jackson said he was just agreeing with Mr Olding who had first referenced “spit-roasting.”
Counsel then asked about a picture which had been sent around of three female guests at the party with Mr McIlroy. In the exchange someone refers to the women as “brasses”, meaning prostitutes.
Counsel put it to Mr Jackson that this obviously was not true and asked why they talked like this.
“It was just stupid behaviour really. We were just egging each other,” Mr Jackson replied. “It doesn’t really mean anything. It’s just stupid behaviour.”
It was not serious communication, he said. “We were hungover as well, it was just stupid chat.”
Counsel suggested the group were engaged in “lies and bravado”. Jackson agreed. “We were all involved in it.”
Mr Jackson said that day he and the three other accused met at Soul Food cafe. He said he doesn’t remember talking about the sexual activity except for telling Mr Olding “I didn’t have sex with her.”
He denied making a plan at the cafe to lie about what happened the night before. No one showed any concern about what had happened but Mr Harrison did say the complainant appeared upset, Mr Jackson told the court.
Mr Jackson said he did nothing to conceal or disguise anything that happened the night before. He said he did not wash the bedsheets which had the complainant’s blood on it.
He went out into town again on the next two evenings. Asked about his mood at this point he said he was “just unbelievably happy” and “in great form”.
On the morning of Thursday, June 30th, 2016 he went out for breakfast and his phone rang. It was Les Kiss, the then director of Ulster Rugby, he said.
According to Mr Jackson, Mr Kiss said: Paddy the police are here. You need to go to Musgrave Police Station immediately.”
He said he was shocked. He and Mr Olding cancelled their food and went to the police station. Mr Kiss told him he did not know what it was about but that “it sounded grave.”
He said he didn’t know why he was required at the police station but thought, because Mr Olding was with him, it might have something to do with the complainant.
He said he answered “no comment” during interview on the advice of his solicitor.
In a later interview he told police he thought what happened with the woman was “good.”
Asked about this by counsel, Mr Jackson said, “I know at the time I said it was good but now, I don’t ever want to be involved in anything like this again.”
Mr Jackson was able to continue playing rugby for Ulster and was selected for Ireland to play against New Zealand in Chicago. He was to be on the bench for the game, he said.
However he was prohibited from travelling to the US as there was a decision pending in the rape investigation, he said.
Mr Jackson continued to play for Ulster and only stopped when he was charged with the offences, he said.
Mr Jackson has now finished giving evidence to his own counsel.
After lunch, he will face cross-examination by the prosecution and counsel for the other accused.
The trial continues.
