Sonya McLean
A man who had sex with a college friend while she was sleeping will be sentenced later for sexually assaulting the woman.
The court heard that the man sent the woman a Facebook message that evening and arranged to meet up with her after she had finished working. 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 the man digitally penetrating her vagina and anus.
She pretended to be asleep and then pretended to wake up, and the man moved away from her. He later sexually assaulted her in the same way, she moved again and he moved away.
The woman then fell asleep again but woke to find the man 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.
Charges
The 27-year-old man Wexford man had initially faced a charge of rape, but he later pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to three charges of sexual assault at his then Dublin home on May 7th 2018.
Mr Coffey confirmed that these pleas were acceptable to the Director of Public Prosecutions on the “basis of full facts”.
Mr Justice Paul McDermott adjourned the case to July 28 next for sentence. He remanded the man on continuing bail.
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 wasn’t, but it was me.”
She said she had considered the man 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 the man “filled me with dread”.
Trauma
She said there has not been a day since that she has not thought about the assault, she wondered “how many more days this can 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 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 the man 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 Sgt told Mr Coffey the man messaged the woman six months later telling her that he knew it was his fault and apologised again.
The man 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.
The man wrote a letter to the woman which Coleman Cody SC, defending, read into the record. The man 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 he has begun counselling and the feedback from the therapist has been “very positive”.
His client has since returned home to his home town in County Wexford, is in a healthy and stable relationship, has strong family support and has structured employment, the court heard.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can contact Women’s Aid (24-hour freephone helpline at 1800-341 900, email [email protected]) or Men’s Aid Ireland (confidential helpline at 01-554 3811, email [email protected]) for support and information.
Safe Ireland also outlines a number of local services and helplines at safeireland.ie/get-help/where-to-find-help/. In the case of an emergency, always dial 999/112.
