Stuart Olding continued to give his testimony in Belfast on Thursday afternoon.
To catch up on the first part of Stuart Olding’s Thursday testimony, in which he discussed WhatsApp messages sent between him and his co-defendants, click here.
Under cross-examination from prosecuting barrister Toby Hedworth QC, Stuart Olding was questioned about his alcohol intake prior to the incident in the bedroom. This consisted of eight cans of beer, four pints of Guinness, two gin and tonics, four vodka lemonades, three shots, plus another beer back at Jackson’s.
Asked by Hedworth whether this was “a bit of a skinful”, Olding said the consumption was over a long period, and that he had eaten twice during that period. He also accepted that while he was drunk, he was “in complete control” of his actions.
Hedworth then suggested to Olding that when he and his friends got back to Jackson’s house, drunk, he and Jackson “were not interested” in what the woman at the centre of the case “wanted to do or was prepared to do” as “she was just a vehicle for your own sexual desires that night.”
Olding replied “no, I wouldn’t put it that way.”
Pointing out that both Olding and Jackson were professional rugby players who used their skills and strength to overpower opponents on the field, Hedworth asked Olding “what match, Mr Olding, is a 19-year old young woman going to be for the pair of you, if she decided to try and resist what you were doing?”
Olding replied “I don’t know. If she had have resisted in any way, I would have had no problem with that. I wouldn’t have carried on.” Asked again if he thought she was any match for them, he replied, “I don’t think she would have been a match.”
Hedworth then took Olding through his police interviews which claimed – like he did from the witness box – that the woman gestured for him to come into the bedroom, then they started kissing.
Olding rejected suggestions this was “a work of fiction on your behalf, complete nonsense, fanciful.” He also denied that when he was taken in for questioning two days after the incident, he and his co-accused had already met up to discuss what they were going to say about what sexual activity took place.
Hedworth also asked Olding about Harrison’s text messages with McIlroy in the hours after the incident, in which Harrison told McIlroy the woman was “in hysterics” and “it wasn’t going to end well”
Olding said the pair didn’t tell him anything about those exchanges when they met for lunch the next day. When Hedworth asked, “Were you cross with Mr Harrison for keeping it a secret?” Olding replied: “Yes”
“Not furious?” asked the prosecutor. Olding replied: “Well, yes”.
Hedworth then asked “this brotherhood with your friends don’t seem to be looking after you very well, do they?”, to which he replied “No they didn’t tell me.”
“Are you telling the truth?” asked Mr Hedworth. “I am telling the truth,” replied Olding, “I am telling the complete truth. He didn’t mention it.”
At the end of his cross examination, Hedworth told Olding: “The reality is that you and your friends went beyond the point of what you knew was acceptable and were trying to cover up happened on a drunken night out with you and Paddy Jackson and Blain McIlroy”
Olding replied: “That’s not true. I am saying that everything that happened that night was completely consensual.”
Reporting by Ashleigh McDonald of M&M News Services.
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