A UCD medicine student says she feels “incredibly supported” by the many people who came out to protest on her behalf at Belfield’s campus in south Dublin this week.
The young woman’s story burst into the wider public domain after a report in UCD’s University Observer was raised in the Dáil last month by Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger.
Coppinger’s statements and the report highlighted incidents where the woman’s “nude, bruised and unconscious” image, taken without her consent following an alleged violent rape, was shared with hundreds of college staff and students.
Despite the support the woman feels from the protest, she says she remains “so discouraged” by UCD management, saying “it is only talking about support now the public’s eyes are on them”.
She claims the university’s aim is in fact to “discredit and undermine” her given the bad press her case has caused it.
At the heart of the case are three separate but related issues: an alleged rape and how it was handled; image-based abuse; and an argument over exams and the woman’s academic progression.
Image-based abuse
Coppinger described in the Dáil how the young woman had allegedly been raped by a fellow UCD student. The TD said the woman was later subjected to image-based abuse, where a photo of her after the alleged assault was circulated among hundreds of UCD staff and students.
On Wednesday more than a thousand people rallied chanting “we stand with her” and called for systemic change in how the university responds to sexual violence.
[ Large crowd attends UCD protest after ‘nude, bruised’ image of student sharedOpens in new window ]
A UCD spokesman said the university stands with its students in support of victims, while the Minister for Health Jennifer Carroll MacNeill said the Medical Council was now “actively engaging” with parties to get more information about the case.
Alleged rape
Speaking to The Irish Times, the woman says the alleged rape occurred in February 2023.
She says she did not report what happened to gardaí.
“I had worked so hard to get into medicine and was so focused on not letting the rape get in my way. I had no control in that situation and focusing on my studies was a way of putting control on it, putting it away in a box,” she says.
Missed exams
In May 2023, she was about to start her summer exams but she missed two of them and failed others as a result of issues arising from the alleged assault. She submitted a doctor’s letter to the university saying she had been unwell but was refused an opportunity to re-sit the exams later in summer 2023.
In September she submitted a certificate saying she had been “categorically, medically unfit” to sit the exams but by then it was too late to resit the 2023 summer exams.
In the background over the last two years has been a contentious High Court case taken by the woman against UCD concerning her lack of academic progression.
The case, initiated in July 2024, could not be reported in the context of the woman’s story until this week due to strict court orders imposed by a judge preventing identification of the university and the student.
Last Monday, as criticism of UCD’s handling of the alleged image-based abuse intensified, the university secured a variation on the order from the court. The lifting of the order allowed UCD to be identified – and to comment on the case – and for the case to be linked publicly with the woman.
In her case, she claimed the college’s approach to her failure to complete second-year modules prevented her progress to third year.
The judgment
In a ruling last month, Judge Marguerite Bolger sided with UCD on all grounds, finding the solutions it offered to help her complete the failed modules were “entirely lawful and proper”.
She said the woman was offered two opportunities, in September 2024 and May 2025, to resit the six modules she had not passed, but for “unconvincing” reasons she did not resit them on these occasions.
The student’s response
The woman claims she had “begged” to resit the exams since summer 2023. The September 2024 offer became “unworkable”, she claims, because the school of medicine would not provide her with that year’s learning materials. The university told the court she had been provided with the online materials from the previous year of study which covered the matters to be examined.
The May 2025 re-sits came as she was reeling from finding out about the image-based abuse.
“I was so upset at that point I couldn’t function,” she says.
Bolger said the woman’s view that she should not be prevented from progressing to third year, despite having six incomplete modules, was “groundless”.
The judge acknowledged that the woman had “very traumatic experiences” but added: “That does not and cannot dilute either the academic standards required of her or the school’s obligation to determine the achievement of learning outcomes necessary to allow progress to the next stage of the degree programme for which they are responsible.”
The image
On April 25th, 2025 the woman was asked to attend a Garda station in Donnybrook, Dublin.
Two days previously UCD had reported to gardaí that a graphic photo of the woman had been received by more than 170 academic staff and students on the evening of April 22nd. The emails had come from anonymous, encrypted Proton addresses.
“I was shocked,” she says, of seeing the photo for the first time.
“I hadn’t known it existed. I almost got sick. I did get sick later that day. My life was shattered in a millisecond. My whole world fell apart.”
The photo, seen by The Irish Times, shows the woman’s pale, bruised, naked body, lying face up across a bed.
Creating, publishing, sharing or threatening to share intimate images without consent, known as image-based sexual abuse (IBSA), is a crime under the Harassment, Harmful Communications and Related Offences Act 2020.
“No one in UCD even lifted the phone to see if I was alive. I sat in my room and cried,” she says.
“I thought I had put [the rape] away in a box. But seeing that image, and knowing [teachers] in UCD I idolised saw it, I was so devastated.
“And the fact the image had been going around for almost a week and no one in UCD management contacted me was horrific.”
The image appeared again, in November and January, in two student group chats. In November it was sent into a 300-member UCD students’ WhatsApp group, accompanied by deeply offensive language about her.
The university’s response
In a statement to staff, UCD president Orla Feely said it was “absolutely not the case” that the university knew the identity of any perpetrator or perpetrators or who had allegedly shared the images. UCD could not start an internal investigation in parallel with a Garda one, she added.
Describing the alleged image-based abuse as “extremely distressing and complex”, Feely said: “The needs of our student have been at the centre of the university’s response throughout.”
In response, the woman says she was not “at the centre” of UCD’s response.
Asked what she needed from UCD to overcome what has happened, the woman says: “I’d like them to show me some solidarity, support me through this and help me get my life back on track.
“At the end of all this, I want to become a doctor.”
Dublin Rape Crisis Centre national 24-hour help line: 1800 77 8888