A 29-YEAR-OLD man who committed a violent sexual attack on a teenager he met in a chip shop has avoided jail on condition he pay €15,000 to the girl.
Graham Griffiths told gardaí he felt he was “under some magnetic force” and “it must have been the hormones” that caused him to attack the 17-year-old girl.
He had been at a drugs party the previous night and later admitted to gardaí he had taken hallucinogenic drugs along with alcohol.
Griffiths, of The Saltings, Annagassan, Co Louth, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to sexually assaulting the girl on April 17th, 2011. He is originally from Dublin but has been living in Louth with his girlfriend for the last six years. The couple plan to get married.
Judge Martin Nolan imposed a four-year sentence, which he suspended in full on conditions including that he pay €15,000 to his victim within one year “to bring home the seriousness of what he has done”. Judge Nolan noted that while Griffiths was collecting this money or repaying loans to family, he would have little or no money to spend on drink or drugs. He said if the woman did not wish to receive the money the court would decide where it would go.
A spokeswoman for the Rape Crisis Network Ireland, Cliona Saidlear, said: “Mr Griffiths seems to have a hatred of women and said he wanted to bring the victim down to his level. For us in the RCNI, this shows the man has an unhealthy attitude towards women, which was not brought on by drugs.”
Ms Saidlear said that while compensation had its place in the legal system, it could never be seen as a substitute for rehabilitation of the perpetrators of sexual assaults.
“Here’s someone who would benefit from probation and access to perpetrators treatment programmes. He seems to have a range of psychological and social problems and they should be addressed.”
Griffiths has previous convictions, four of which are for assault causing harm. Griffiths’s mother told Judge Nolan that her son told her when he was a child that he had been both sexually assaulted and raped by a distant relative.
The court heard Griffiths first approached the girl in a chip shop in a Dublin suburb but she pushed him away. He then grabbed her on the street outside, but she got away again before he grabbed her a third time.
He pushed her against railings and sexually assaulted her before he dragged her to the ground by her hair and pinned her by lying on top of her.
Griffiths ripped the girl’s clothes in an effort to get them off her. During the attack her male friend was trying to get him off the victim. The victim was eventually released and Griffiths got up and walked away.
Griffiths told Judge Nolan that he took too many LSD tablets the previous night and by the time of the attack had lost all sense of reality.
A victim impact report handed into the court said the victim had attended counselling every fortnight for the last six months and still suffered flashbacks and had trouble sleeping.