A Waterford man who raped his next-door neighbour as she was recovering from surgery has been jailed for six years.
The man (63) cannot be identified to protect the woman’s identity. He gained entry to her home by pretending to have lost his keys.
The man pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to raping the woman at her home in April 1991. He has previous convictions for the sexual abuse of his stepdaughter.
Passing sentence on Thursday, Mr Justice Paul McDermott said the injured party had just been discharged from the hospital after having surgery. The woman screamed for help in the hope that the man’s wife would hear her next door.
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Mr Justice McDermott said this defendant dragged the injured party, pushed her on to a bed and raped her. “This man came to her house with the intention to rape her,” he said.
The judge said a probation report before the court places the man at high risk of reoffending, and found that the defendant had not offered insight or motives into this offending.
Mr Justice McDermott set a headline sentence of nine years and placed the offending in the higher range. He said the aggravating factors were that it was a planned rape, the defendant took advantage of his neighbour, she was alone in her home where she should have felt safe, violence was used, and that she was recuperating after surgery.
The judge said the guilty plea, the man’s work history, his physical and mental health issues and the fact he is willing to engage with the Probation Service were mitigating factors.
He sentenced him to seven years in prison and suspended the final 12 months. He also placed him under the supervision of the Probation Service and instructed him to carry out all directions deemed necessary by it.
Finally, he ordered that the defendant have no contact either directly or indirectly with the injured party in this case. He backdated this sentence to when the defendant went into custody in December 2024.
An investigating garda told Garrett Baker SC, prosecuting, that the woman, who lived alone, had just returned to her home following surgery when she heard a knock on the door.
The man, her next-door neighbour, told her that he had forgotten his key and asked to go through her house so he could jump the back wall into his own property.
As soon as the man was inside the house, he pushed her on to the sofa, got on top of her and started pulling at her clothes. The woman was screaming for the man’s wife, hoping she would hear.
She showed the man her wounds from the surgery, but was dragged and pushed upstairs to the bedroom, where he raped her. She was weak and in pain from the surgery, but did attempt to push him off. The man immediately got dressed.
The woman asked him what if she were pregnant. The accused told her to stand up and “let it pour out”. She felt ashamed, degraded and humiliated. The man left her home.
The woman said she never forgot that the man went back into his own home using his key that he had all along.
The woman made a complaint in July 2023, and a Garda investigation began. The man was interviewed, and while he acknowledged they lived beside each other he denied the offence.
The injured party, who chose not to come to court, prepared a victim-impact statement which was read to the court by the investigating garda.
In it she described the adverse effects of the rape on her physical, emotional and mental health. She said she suffers sleepless nights when sexual abuse is in the media.
The man served a 4½-year sentence, with the final 16 months suspended, for sexual assaults of his stepdaughter.
The garda agreed with Colman Cody SC, defending, that the guilty plea was an enormous relief to the injured party in this case.
Mr Cody handed in reports to the court. He outlined that the accused had a difficult childhood and said his client had referred to being a victim of sexual abuse himself. He is divorced from his wife.
Counsel said the man wishes to apologise for his offence. He said the man recognises the vulnerable position of the injured party and wished to spare her from the trauma of coming to court.
