This article contains references to rape. Reader discretion is advised.
By Sonya McLean
A woman who was raped at a house party has said that she has been made “feel like a prisoner in my own life” since the attack.
The woman delivered her victim impact statement in the sentence hearing of Tadgh Lonergan (28) of Kilsheelan, Clonmel, Tipperary.
Lonergan was convicted following a Central Criminal Court jury last month. He had pleaded not guilty to rape at a house in Tipperary on June 6, 2021.
His victim wishes to retain her anonymity but indicated she has no objection to Lonergan being named in reporting the case.
The woman took the stand to read her victim impact statement into the record.
“He has made me feel like a prisoner in my own life,” the woman said before she added that she hoped maybe Lonergan would now use his time in custody to reflect on “how selfish he was – how his behaviour was completely unacceptable and how he has destroyed my life”.
“I am determined, that with continued support I will find the old me again,” the woman concluded before she asked Justice Tony Hunt to “consider the profound and lasting effect this crime has had on my life”.
Mr Justice Hunt told the woman that he often notes that other people in her position, when they deliver a victim impact statement, speak of a determination to get on with their lives because “otherwise that gives the person who did the wrong to them the win”.
“It is not going to be easy,” Mr Justice Hunt acknowledged, before he said he hoped the woman could adopt this approach. He added that he hoped the fact that she had used her own voice in delivering her victim impact statement will help her in some way.
Mr Justice Hunt remanded Lonergan in continuing custody until July 29 next for sentence. Lonergan had his bail revoked and was remanded in custody following his conviction last month.
Mr Justice Hunt acknowledged evidence that Lonergan previously worked in stud farms, including Coolmore Stud in Tipperary.
The judge referred to a sentence hearing that he dealt with last week and how in news reports of that case, reference was made to testimonials from employers and potential employment for convicted persons in the future.
“In cases such as this (Lonergan’s case) – I don’t have any option nor do I want any option but to impose an immediate custodial sentence,” Justice Hunt said adding that the case the earlier one had been compared to was a Circuit Criminal Court case rather than a rape sentence in the Central Criminal Court.
He said it is quite simple in that the person before him is going to prison – “so the immediate prospect of employment does not arise. The future employment is a matter for a potential employer and potential employee,” Mr Justice Hunt said.
He accepted a letter from Lonergan’s partner and acknowledged that he had no previous convictions.
“But previous good character goes up in smoke in the context of such an offence,” Mr Justice Hunt said.
Coleman Cody SC, defending, said his client was the youngest of three children and his siblings were in court to support him.
He said there were many “positive aspects” to his client’s character and he handed in a letter from his partner which outlined that Lonergan is in a committed and stable relationship.
“He will still be a young man when he re-enters society,” Mr Cody said before he asked Mr Justice Hunt to acknowledge that a prison sentence would be more difficult for a person like Lonergan than it would be for others who may be more familiar with the criminal justice system.
Mr Cody asked the court to accept that Lonergan will be “publicly known as a person who has been convicted of such an offence”.
Justice Hunt said the evidence in the case was that it had been a “perfectly normal night out” and now there are two young people before the court “whose lives have been totally turned upside down”.
A local sergeant told Eoghan Cole SC, prosecuting, that there were two trials in the case after a jury failed to agree on a verdict in an earlier trial this year.
She said that the woman was 26 years old when she attended the party of a friend in Tipperary. Lonergan arrived later at the house and the woman said there was some “unremarkable” conversation between them.
She later went to bed. She had been in an en-suite brushing her teeth and when she came back into the room Lonergan was there. He tried to kiss her but she told him: “No, this is not happening.”
The sergeant agreed with Mr Cole that Lonergan forcibly kissed the woman and bit her neck before he forced her onto the bed and raped her.
The woman later said it, “was the worst I ever felt”. She tried to push the man off during the rape. She eventually managed to get to the bedroom door and found it was locked. She managed to get out of the room and went to the bathroom.
The woman said she heard other people asking Lonergan: “What the fuck did you do to her?”
Mr Cole said that the trial heard that people could hear screaming from the room and the woman shouting, “Help….get off me”.
The woman reported the rape to the gardaí and was later treated in the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit. She was found to have bruising on her neck, thigh and ankle.
Lonergan was arrested on June 29, 2021 and interviewed six times. He denied any wrongdoing.
He claimed that the woman had touched him on the leg affectionately earlier in the night.
He said he had been upstairs and he saw the woman in one of the bedrooms. He went in to talk to her. He claimed she asked him if he was involved with someone else before there was consensual kissing and consensual sex.
Lonergan said someone knocked on the door and the woman told him to stop so he stopped.
He claimed that the reason she made up the allegation was because she was simply embarrassed by the fact that they had sex.
The woman said the rape had torn her life into pieces and “made me feel pain at a level that I never thought possible, impacting my physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing”.
She said she never thought something like this could ever happen to her and described the rape as “an out-of-body experience”. She said she felt “completely powerless, felt disgusted and felt horrible in my own body”.
The woman described scrubbing herself so hard that her skin became irritated and sometimes bled. She described her hair falling out in clumps and numerous incidences of infections which her GP attributed to her experiencing high stress levels.
She described an unhealthy relationship with food and said in the immediate aftermath of the rape she struggled to keep food down without gagging or vomiting. She described the same issues in the lead-up to the trial.
She said she felt isolated because she felt no one could truly understand the pain and terror she experiences daily adding that she suffers from flashbacks, nightmares, sleepless nights and bouts of severe depression.
“I was living in a constant state of fear – simple tasks like leaving my house or going to work have become overwhelming. I was afraid of meeting him or another predator again,” the woman continued.
She said her “sense of security had been replaced with a feeling of vulnerability”.
She said she was not the person she once was and so overwhelmed by the whole process.
The woman said that at the time of the rape she had “a dream job in a city that I loved – I long for that time back”.
She said she left her teaching position and didn’t know if she would be able to continue with her career in education but she left to live nearer home to be closer to her family and friends.
The woman said she secured a new job but she still struggles in work and sometimes needs a colleague to step in to cover her class.
She said she would have loved to have gone travelling but she is not able to do that now adding that the rape “hugely impacted my dreams to go travelling and my quality of life”.
The woman said Lonergan “shattered my love of life” adding that the rape affected not only her but her loved ones too as they “have watched me suffer and felt helpless in their attempts to support me”.
She said the rape had “a ripple affect that has reached every corner of my life and it is something I will carry forever”.
Describing having to give evidence at trial the woman said it was “horrible to be in a court room so close to him (Lonergan)”.
“My physical wounds have healed but emotional scars will stay forever,” the woman continued.
She said has had “a complete loss of confidence since he raped me” and described “low self-esteem”. She said she has felt so worthless because of Lonergan.