A MAN has been jailed for 15 years after he attacked a woman in the public toilets of a Cork town and subjected her to 40 minutes of rape and sexual violence.
Przemyslaw Jakubowski (36) grabbed the woman from behind as she was drying her hands after running errands in Kanturk.
He pulled her into a cubicle and threatened to kill her. He was wearing women’s underwear at the time which was later found in his apartment by gardaí.
Jakubowski, who has a conviction for attempted rape in his native Poland, was found guilty by a jury following a 12-day trial last May. The court heard he did not accept the jury’s verdict.
Jakubowski, Egmont Court, Earls Street, Kanturk, had pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to 12 counts including rape, oral rape, anal rape, threats to kill, assault causing harm, sexual assault and false imprisonment during the attack on the woman in March 2010. He was convicted on 11 counts and found not guilty by direction of the judge of one count of oral rape. He held his head in his hand and muttered to himself as the verdicts were read out.
Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy said Jakubowski “gratified himself in an abnormal manner” during the assault by wearing women’s clothes. He said this was an aggravating factor. He said there were no mitigating factors in Jakubowski’s favour aside from him finding prison more difficult in Ireland because he was a foreign national.
The judge said the offence was one of the most serious before the courts in recent times and it was “deeply worrying” Jakubowski already had a conviction for attempted rape. He said he noted the woman had been “rendered into a changed state” and had suffered deep stress and scarring.
“One can only hope that the victimisation she suffered resulting from this trial is coming to an end,” Mr Justice McCarthy added.
He jailed Jakubowski for 15 years and ordered he be registered as a sex offender.
Insp Declan O’Sullivan said people in the area had been living in fear in the three weeks before Jakubowski was taken into custody. He said gardaí received great co-operation from the community in their investigation, including the Polish community, who were “horrified” by the attack. He said Jakubowski had arrived in Ireland earlier that year and was doing odd jobs in construction. He had four previous convictions in Poland, including attempted rape and robbery.
He told Una Ní Raifeartaigh SC, prosecuting, that Jakubowski got the woman in a headlock and locked the door before pushing her head against the cubicle wall.
She noticed he was wearing a cap, dark sunglasses and dark clothes with blue women’s underwear and a stained pink slip underneath. She also noticed that he was wearing a thong.
At one point the attacker’s phone rang. He took it out and checked it but did not answer.
Throughout the attack, she pleaded with him not to kill her and he responded: “Shut up you bitch”. When he finished he told her to stay on the ground and to give him “a few minutes”. He fled and she ran out, flagged down a passing car and alerted gardaí.
The inspector said the victim’s DNA was found under his fingernails and on a pink blood-stained slip. Jakubowski’s DNA and fingerprints were also found on a beer can at the crime scene.
Tim O’Leary SC, defending, said he was not able to offer much mitigation because his client did not accept the trial verdict. He asked Mr Justice McCarthy to take into account that Jakubowski was a foreign national and would therefore find prison here more difficult.