“Controlling” relationship ended with sexual assaults and false imprisonment

By Declan Brennan

A man who repeatedly assaulted and sexually assaulted his then partner and later held in her home against her will has been jailed for five and a half years.

Derek Reid (35) of Clonliffe rd., Dublin 3 slapped the woman in the face, choked her, headbutted her, dragged her around her flat by the hair and sat on her chest and put his hands on her mouth to stop her screaming out for help.

He threatened to make her son go missing and said that her sister would die screaming from what he would do to her. The pair had met online in February 2017 but only met in person in mid February 2018.

Within days of this meeting Reid effectively moved in to her city centre flat, where all the offending later took place, and he began talking about getting engaged. The woman felt controlled by Reid, who made her believe she had nobody to turn to.

Shortly before he was due to go on trial at the Central Criminal Court Reid pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual assault committed between March 10 and 13, 2018.

He also pleaded guilty to false imprisonment of the woman from March 15 to 16, 2018.

In the first assault Reid had drank a pint of vodka.

He then ripped the woman’s clothes off and had sex with her while biting her cheek and telling her he wanted her to have his baby.

She told gardai it happened out of nowhere and she didn’t consent but she was too afraid to tell Reid to stop.

She was upset afterwards and later the same evening Reid forced her to give him oral sex, pulling her hair and forcing her head down.

He left the next day but came back again and repeatedly assaulted her over the course of the night.

At one point, she managed to get out of the flat and was making her way to the security gates in the courtyard of the apartment complex when Reid caught up with her and dragged her back inside.

He began slapping her again and spitting in her face.

He told her “do you want your ma and son to go missing, or even better your sister? She will not die screaming of cancer, she will die screaming of what I’m going to do to her.”

At one point during the six days, the woman texted a friend saying “this thing is gonna kill me”, Dean Kelly SC, prosecuting, outlined to the court.

The woman eventually managed to get out of the flat and went to the Saol Women’s Refuge, where a support worker had been helping her trying to get away from Reid.

When she returned a day later to collect her belongings, she saw that Reid had defecated on her bed and carpet and smashed up the furniture and a TV set.

Reid was still there and he repeatedly assaulted her again before forcing her to pick up her social welfare payment and hand it over to him.

In her victim impact report, the woman said that the events of those six days were like a nightmare on repeat in her head. At the time she was recovering from drug addiction and felt lonely and vulnerable.

The woman told the court that she had attempted suicide but was now rebuilding her life.

“I finished college, I started to believe in myself again. I turned all my hurt and pain into something. I pushed myself, I got my degree, I have my peer training.

“I am a strong woman and I will never let anyone hurt me like you [Reid] did. I will continue to be the best version of myself I can be,” she stated.

A garda witness agreed with defending counsel Padraig Dwyer SC that most of Reid’s offending is rooted in his alcohol and drug abuse. His previous convictions include assault of another previous partner who was heavily pregnant at the time.

Counsel said his client has taken steps to address his addictions and is now clean of drugs and alcohol. He has been in custody since May 2021.

Justice Paul Burns said that this was an atrocious violation of the victim and that Reid’s actions were deliberately intended to degrade her. He noted that during the false imprisonment he threatened her and made demands for money.

He noted that the Probation Service assessed him as being at a high risk of committing intimate partner violence again.

While Reid made an apology in this assessment, he also spoke of the victim in degrading terms and tried to deflect blame on to her, the court heard.

Justice Burns imposed concurrent sentences of six and a half years for the sexual assaults and suspended the final year on conditions including that Reid keep the peace, engage with drug addiction and alcohol abuse treatment, remain drug free and engage with victim awareness programmes.

He imposed a sentence of five and a half years for the false imprisonment, also to run concurrent.

He said the main mitigating factors were Reid’s guilty pleas which a garda witness told the court were of relief to the victim.

Mr Kelly SC told the court that the victim’s position was that she had no issue with the publication of Reid’s identity as it does not identify her.