Man who raped Spanish student deemed fit for release a month before attack

A month before a Dublin man kidnapped and raped a Spanish student, a Garda inspector had directed his detention under the Mental Health Act.

Following his detention, Eoin Berkley of Hampton Wood Way, Finglas, was seen by a doctor who deemed him fit to be released.

Two days later, Berkley’s brother rang a Garda station and said Berkley needed to be detained under the Act. Gardaí told him there was no basis for his detention and advised that Berkley seek medical care.

After a hearing yesterday at the Central Criminal Court, where Berkley admitted three counts of raping the young woman at the Irish Glass Bottle Company site on Pigeon House Road in Dublin, at a time unknown between July 15th and 16th, 2017, Mr Justice Michael White adjourned sentencing to next week, saying that time was needed to consider the appropriate sentence.

He said the victim was violated in a horrendous way.

There was a collective sense of shame that somebody visiting Ireland had suffered in such a vile way.

He remanded the accused in continuing custody to November 1st.

Wrote in blood

The court heard Berkley, who was in care from an early age, wrote in blood on the walls of a holding cell in the Criminal

Courts

of Justice courthouse in Dublin the words “I’m sorry”.

Defence counsel Michael Bowman SC said this was evidence of Berkley apologising.

The 18-year-old student, described as naive and shy, had come to Ireland two weeks earlier to improve her English and was staying with a host family in Dublin.

Berkley tied her hands behind her back using a dog leash and told her he had previously killed six people and was going to kill her. She begged him to kill her in the least painful way possible and he gave her some tablets and he then put some black gloves on.

She took the tablets and fell down and he began abusing her.

Over the hours that followed Berkley raped the woman on three separate occasions. The victim escaped when Berkley took her down to the beach and he fell asleep.