Man jailed for rape of former partner

This article contains references to rape. Reader discretion is advised.

By Claire Henry and Eimear Dodd

A man who assaulted then raped his former partner in their home has been jailed for seven years and seven months.

The Central Criminal Court heard that the man pleaded guilty on a trial date to two counts of assault causing harm on dates in October 2017 and May 2018.

The 29-year-old man initially pleaded not guilty to rape, and a Central Criminal Court jury was unable to reach a verdict during a trial in late 2023.

A retrial collapsed earlier this year, and when the case was relisted for trial in July, the man entered a guilty plea to one count of rape on a date in May 2018.

All three offences occurred at their shared home in the southeast of the country. He can’t be named to protect the victim’s anonymity.

Imposing sentence on Thursday, Ms Justice Karen O’Connor noted the man raped the woman on May 25, 2018, shortly after he had assaulted her.

The judge noted the aggravating features include the man’s previous convictions, some of which are violent in nature, and the significant impact on the victim.

She said the court had considered a number of psychiatric reports submitted by the defence, which outlined the man’s mental health difficulties and a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. The judge noted the man has a history of polysubstance abuse and, at times, is not compliant with prescribed medication.

Ms Justice O’Connor said the court had considered whether the man’s culpability at the time may have been diminished due to his mental health condition, but this is complicated by his history of drug misuse and difficulties taking prescribed medication.

She noted there is no direct evidence or opinion from a medical professional about these issues but said the court had taken into consideration when formulating the sentence that the man has longstanding mental health difficulties.

The judge said while the man didn’t enter early guilty pleas, they were valuable.

Having considered the mitigation and the man’s personal circumstances, she imposed a sentence of five years and three months on the rape count.

She said both assaults were at the higher level of offending and imposed sentences of three years and four months on the assault causing harm counts.

The judge said the court couldn’t ignore the aggression displayed by the man during the assault, which occurred shortly before the rape, and directed one sentence of  three years and four months to run consecutive to the sentence imposed on the rape count.

The judge said she would suspend the final 12 months of the total eight-year and seven-month sentence on strict conditions.

The man has 19 previous convictions, which include convictions for possession of drugs, threats to kill, assault causing harm, theft and road traffic matters.

At a previous hearing, an investigating gardai told John Byrne SC, prosecuting, that the injured party had been in an on-off volatile relationship with the accused, and they were both in their early twenties at the time.

In October 2017, the injured party reported that she had been assaulted to the gardai. She told them that a group of people, including the man, had been socialising in their house. The court heard that the two had a disagreement when the man said she had been flirting and texting other people.

The couple went outside, and out of nowhere, he headbutted her in the face. The man said, “Don’t lie to me, don’t lie to me”, and headbutted her for a second time.

The woman, who was now covered in blood, walked away from the house but was followed by the defendant, who brought her back inside the house. The woman went to the bathroom and escaped out a window. She ran to a nearby garda station, but it was closed. A neighbour called the gardai for her, and she was taken for medical treatment.

The injured party did not make a complaint to the gardai regarding the assault and continued her relationship with the man.

The court heard that in May 2018, the woman contacted the gardai and said she’d been assaulted by the man again. She told gardai that they had been out socialising with friends, and when they returned home, he claimed that she was seeing or in contact with someone else. He then began to hit her.

The victim told gardai that when she tried to talk, the accused said, “Don’t interrupt me, don’t interrupt me.” He also made a casual threat to kill her.

 The injured woman got up and made her way to the doorway but was grabbed around the throat by the man. He then continued to hit and kick her while she was on the floor.

 The court heard the accused asked the woman, “Why she had made him do this.” The woman played along with this and pleaded with him to get her some ice. He then asked her if she was “okay” and gave her a hug.

 The man then brought her by the hand upstairs; he indicated that if she forgave him, she would have  sex with him. Out of fear, she engaged in sexual intercourse with him. She said she was crying but believed that if she did not have sex with him, the violence may reoccur.

 She said in her garda statement that she did not say that she did not want to have sex. She said she lay in the bed until it got bright, then crept out.

 The man was interviewed in May 2019 and denied assaulting the woman but accepted that they had a volatile relationship. He made a further voluntary statement in February 2020 in which he described the rape allegations as “not true” and said the sex had been consensual.

 A victim impact statement was read out on behalf of the woman, which said, “I have struggled with anxiety since my childhood, but since the attack, I have had daily panic attacks.” She said, “I am easily startled and have very low self-esteem.”

 “All that I am certain of is that I am not the same person since this happened to me. I am oversensitive and over-emotional.”

She described how her “body freezes”, and she gets intense periods of crying and exhaustion.

She said, “I wish I could just find some peace and calmness in myself. I am scared of the unknown, and I am anxious from the moment I wake up. I am relieved that he has pleaded guilty.”

Ms Justice O’Connor thanked the woman for the insight into how this offending has affected her and said, “I sincerely hope that you will be successful in your studies and that you take the support available to you.”

Det Gda Moynihan agreed with Karl Finnegan, SC, defending, that the guilty plea to the rape offence was valuable and that it was the accused’s belief at the time that consent had been given.

The garda agreed with counsel that the accused has mental health difficulties.

Mr Finnegan told the court that when the Probation Services interviewed his client, he was experiencing both audio and visual hallucinations, which is supported by the psychiatric report before the court. He said that when his client had a clearer manner of thinking, he pleaded guilty.

Counsel said his client left school as a teenager with no qualifications and began smoking at the age of ten. This progressed to cannabis, alcohol and eventually heroin.

He said that his client has suffered from paranoid schizophrenia since he was a teenager, and he sometimes found it difficult to regularly take his medication. He said that the accused had paranoid thoughts, and the evidence before the court was of arguments between the then-couple when there were levels of paranoia.

He asked the court to take into account the very fair evidence given by Det Gda Moynihan and that his client did believe that the injured party was consenting at the time.