Convicted sex offender currently serving 28 and half years in prison given further six years for attempting to strangle a woman

By Eimear Dodd and Fiona Ferguson

CONTENT WARNING: The following article contains material that may be distressing or traumatizing to some readers.

A convicted sex offender serving 28 and a half years for attacks on women has had his time in prison extended for attempting to strangle a young woman while she was out walking in 2011.

Slawomir Gierlowski (38) was previously sentenced in 2018 to 22 and a half years with four years suspended for random outdoor attacks on three other women between 2011 and 2016.

In 2019, Gierlowski, of Galtymore Road, Drimnagh, was convicted in the Central Criminal Court of attempted rape, sexual assault and assault causing harm of a fourth victim on the night of December 18, 2010. This attack took place in the city centre and was his first recorded attack.

In July 2021, he was sentenced for this offence to a further ten years consecutive to the earlier sentence, giving a total prison sentence of 28 and a half years.

He was due to be released in 2037.

Gierlowski was last year found guilty by a jury in a Dublin Circuit Criminal Court trial of assault causing harm, false imprisonment and production of an article in relation to the attack on the young mother at Ballymount Park on May 30, 2011.

He does not accept the verdict of the jury and maintains his innocence.

The court heard Gierlowski’s DNA and fingerprints were taken as part of an investigation in 2016 into a separate assault and matched samples that were recovered from the flex and cigarette box in this case.

The victim described how the man, later identified as Gierlowski, had jumped at her in broad daylight, pushed her to the ground, straddled her and failed to get a flex around her neck before putting his hands on her neck and squeezing with his thumbs.

He tried to pull down her pants.

She resisted and fought back at the man who punched her many times with a closed fist before he ran off.

The woman continues to suffer adverse effects from the offence ten years later.

“I felt something was taken, I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I would not get it back,” she said.

Judge Sheahan today extended Gierlowski’s time in custody by a further six years.

Judge Sheahan noted Gierlowski had similar serious offending pre and post this offence.

She said his offending had been previously described as “dangerous predatory behaviour” which even at this stage he refuses to acknowledge despite going through three trials.

She noted he has been in custody since 2016 but said she could not take into account any insight gained or remorse as he does not accept the verdict and there is no guilty plea.

She said the court would take into account that he is already serving a significant sentence.

Previously Mr Justice Michael White said that in the absence of Gierlowski acknowledging his predatory behaviour, he remained a serious threat to the safety of women.

Judge Sheahan said the protection of society was an important consideration for the court.

She imposed concurrent sentences totalling six years consecutive to his Central Criminal Court sentence.

She noted the need to have regard to rehabilitation but said there was no evidential basis for suspending part of the sentence.

At the sentence hearing in July 2022 Garda Detective Inspector Catriona Joyce told Roisin Lacey SC, prosecuting, that on the day in question, the victim left her home at 11am to go for a walk in the nearby park.

The victim was recently married and a young mother.

She was walking along a path in a more isolated part of the park when she walked past a man standing in the bushes holding a flex in his hands.

On her second loop of the park at around 11.45am, she noticed that the man was standing in the same spot and staring at her.

The man turned to face the bushes as she approached before turning back.

He ran at her and tried to put the flex around her neck.

The victim was pushed to the ground and the man straddled her.

She fought back, kicking and shouting.

The man tried to put the flex around her neck again, before putting his hands on her throat and starting to squeeze.

The victim began to feel light-headed but continued to kick out.

Her attacker then tried to pull down her pants and started to punch her face.

The man was wearing a silver chain and the victim grabbed this.

He stopped punching her, looked around then ran away.

The victim managed to call her husband, then ran towards a woman walking nearby.

The victim was taken to hospital and suffered soft tissue injuries, a swollen nose and bruising.

A cyclist in the park remembered seeing a man standing near a bench holding a cigarette packet, who matched the description given by the victim.

Another person recalled seeing a man running towards the Luas line.

The attacker never spoke to the victim during the assault.

Gardai recovered the flex from the scene and a cigarette box.

Analysis of the flex identified the victim’s DNA and an unknown fingerprint.

A DNA profile of an unknown male was recovered from the cigarette box.

A possible suspect for the attack was acquitted in 2013 and the garda investigation continued.

Gierlowski was identified in 2016 as a suspect in a separate assault.

His DNA and fingerprints were taken as part of this investigation, and matched the samples recovered from the flex and cigarette box following a routine search of the forensic database.

At that time, Gierlowski was a suspect in two other cases including an attempted rape.

He was arrested in relation to the assault, but made no admissions when interviewed.

Gierlowski told gardai that he had never been at the location where the attack occurred and could not explain why his DNA and fingerprints were found.

The victim did not identify Gierlowski as her assailant during an ID parade in 2016.

In her victim impact statement, the woman said she was left with huge anxiety and felt “incapable of being of wife and a mother”. She felt constantly unsafe and scared.

“I felt something was taken, I didn’t know what it was, but I knew I would not get it back,” she said.

She said the incident also affected her husband and changed their relationship.

The victim said she had loved to take long walks listening to music before this attack, but now could not walk with her children.

She also moved away from the area, where she had grown up.

Morris Coffey SC, defending, said the defendant is in a relationship and his partner stands by him.

Gierlowski has two children and moved to Ireland from Poland in 2008.

He had no previous convictions before these incidents came to light.

Gierlowski has been in custody since 2016 and finds it difficult as a foreign national.

Defence counsel said Gierlowski is serving a very long sentence and not due for release until 2037.