Man jailed for sexual assault of friend

By Sonya McLean

A victim of sexual assault has described how she would sit on bridges and dangle her legs, begging for the courage to jump in the aftermath of the assault.

The Central Criminal Court heard that Robert Dunne (27) of Ballinlow, Gorey, Co Wexford, pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual assault at Island Bridge, Dublin 8, on May 7, 2018.

He has no previous convictions. The injured party has waived her right to anonymity to allow Dunne to be named.

The court heard that Dunne sent the woman a Facebook message on the evening in question and arranged to meet up with her after she had finished work.

They had alcohol and cocaine together before they went back to his rented home and had consensual sex.

At one point, she was afraid she was going to vomit, so she said she wanted to stop and fell asleep in the bed with the man beside her.

The investigating sergeant told Maurice Coffey SC, prosecuting, that the woman woke up to find Dunne digitally penetrating her vagina and anus.

She pretended to be asleep and then pretended to wake up, and Dunne moved away from her.

He later sexually assaulted her in the same way again, stopping when she moved away.

The woman fell asleep again but woke to find Dunne having sex with her.

She moved, and he stopped.

She pretended to be asleep and waited until she was certain he was asleep before she gathered up her clothes and left the house.

She dressed herself as she ran away and made her way to a nearby hotel where staff assisted her and gardaí were called.

Dunne had initially faced a charge of rape, but pleas to two counts of sexual assault were acceptable to the Director of Public Prosecutions on a full facts basis.

The now 24-year-old woman read her victim impact statement to the court.

She said the incident “turned my world upside down,” and “part of me died in that room”.

She said she can still see herself running from the house.

“For the first 48 hours, it didn’t feel real. It doesn’t feel like it was me who walked into that hotel (referring to the hotel she went to in the immediate aftermath). I wish it weren’t, but it was me.”

She said she had considered Dunne as a friend and used to look forward to seeing him, but in the days after, she struggled to go to college, as the thoughts of seeing him “filled me with dread”.

She said there had not been a day since she had not thought about the assault.

She wondered, “How many more days can this ruin, my wedding day, the birth of my first child?”

The woman said she found herself turning to drugs and alcohol and didn’t want to be alone anymore.

She described sitting on bridges, “dangling my legs. I begged for the courage to jump.”

She said a shame, “which shouldn’t be mine, feels and still feels heavy around my neck, and I haven’t been able to shake it off”.

“I am more than what happened to me,” the woman continued before she said; that some people have the impression that “I have come out the other end, but the truth is that I am overwhelmed”.

“What he did to me was not, nor will it ever be, fine. What he did to me was disgusting. He used me like an object for pleasure,” the woman said before she added that in the aftermath, “sex became transactional” for her as she was “determined to make sex meaningless”.

The sergeant outlined to the court a number of text messages and social media messages exchanged between the man and the woman in the days after the assault, during which Dunne said he had been in “a bad place” and said he was “sorry”.

He told her he wanted her to know it was not her fault, adding, “I should have dealt with my own shit.”

The witness told Mr Coffey that Dunne messaged the woman six months later telling her that he knew it was his fault and apologised again.

Dunne was interviewed by gardaí in July 2019, during which he claimed that the sex between them had been consensual.

He was questioned again the following May when various messages were put to him by gardaí, but he replied “no comment” to any questions he was asked.

Dunne wrote a letter to the woman, which Coleman Cody SC, defending, read into the record.

He said in the letter that he hoped the letter would bring the woman “some peace”.

He said he was “so so sorry” and accepted he had disregarded her needs.

Mr Cody said his client acknowledged that the woman told him that night that they could resume sex in the morning and that he had not respected that.

Counsel said the offence was “a fundamental breach of trust” and said that the woman’s emotional statement outlined the impact the assault had and continues to have on her.

He submitted that his client has an understanding and acceptance “not only of the act itself but also the effect that act had on her” and that his client also “demonstrates an insight into the consequences his offending had on her”.

Mr Cody said there was a positive probation report before the court, which outlines that his client has begun counselling and the feedback from the therapist has been “very positive”.

His client has since returned home to his hometown in County Wexford, is in a healthy and stable relationship, has strong family support and has structured employment, the court heard.

Mr Cody said it has been “a watershed moment” in his client’s life and suggested that as he has “done everything to put his best foot forward”, it was an appropriate case for a non-custodial sentence.

Passing sentence last Friday (28th), Mr Justice Paul McDermott said, “I have considered the victim impact statement where the injured party has outlined the consequences and the effects it has had on her life and how she had had to adapt from when she ran from that house to date.

“It has affected her in social terms, and she had thoughts of ending her life at one stage and still has nightmares.”

The judge said they were “serious sexual assaults” of a “degrading kind” and had caused her “considerable harm”, adding that they “were committed when the injured party was in a vulnerable state.”

Mr Justice McDermott set a headline sentence of four years.

He acknowledged the probation report, which highlights Dunne is at low risk of sexual reoffending, has the support of his family and partner, and is willing to cooperate with the Probation Service in the future.

The judge said he would consider as mitigating factors Dunne’s guilty plea ensuring that no trial was required, his apologies, his attendance for a voluntary interview with the gardai and his lack of previous conditions.

Mr Justice McDermott sentenced Dunne to three years in prison on each of the two counts to run concurrently.

He suspended the final 18 months for two years under strict conditions.