A woman has spoken of being raped while on the way to her father's funeral.
Towards the end of 2019, Naomi Woodyatt went from her home in Cork to Dublin to sort out an issue with her passport ahead of a flight to her home country of Canada.
She stayed overnight in a hotel in the Irish capital, waiting to find out if her passport issue was resolved and therefore whether she would be able to make it to Canada in time.
"At that point, I felt like I was at the lowest point in my life," Naomi told Cork's Red FM.
"I was so sad about my dad, I had been crying for three days straight since I heard the news."
The mourning woman decided to head down to the hotel's bar to get a glass of wine.
As she sat and drank a man came and sat down beside her.
He was a 'clean cut' engineer who was on the way to the US for work, Naomi recalled.
It seemed to her that that he was a 'gentleman', who wasn't being 'flirty' but offered to buy her a drink.
Naomi remembers being handed a glass by him and then nothing else until she woke up the next morning in her hotel room, RSVP Live reports.
She was lying on the room's single bed with the man sitting on the double staring at her.
He had raped her during the night - and raped her again that morning before getting dressed and leaving.
"My body was in pain, I had bruises all over my legs," Naomi said.
"I later discovered I had two burn marks, they looked like cigarette marks."
Naomi felt hazy and confused.
Her rings, which were not expensive but had a personal value to her, were gone.
Naomi said she 'switched modes' in a bid to detach from her emotions, allowing her to attend her father's funeral.
When she returned to Cork she noticed the standard of her work was slipping and she began to have nightmares.
She woke up at night crying and screaming, and felt a shell of her former self.
One day Naomi decided to get checked for STIs after driving past the Rape Crisis Centre.
After ringing the service she broke down into tears, the reality of what had happened hitting her.
Naomi went to the police to file a report, but the Garda she spoke to told her it probably wasn't worth her while.
The police officer, who Naomi described as 'compassionate', advised that she would be dragged through a lengthy process with little chance of success.
Naomi believes that the man who attacked her is a serial rapist.
She added: "That guy didn't look like a rapist, he didn't look like I should be scared of him.
"I just want women to have a voice and not be silenced.
"And to break the stigma - rape has nothing to do with what a person looks like, what they wear, there’s no age or type or demographic. It's not your fault."
