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A man who sexually assaulted a DCU student at a bus stop after he had taken a cocktail of drugs has been sentenced to 2½ years in prison.
Paul O’Shea (26) faces further sentencing later this year for separate charges of threatening to slit the throats of his former partner and one of her colleagues.
O’Shea, of Sillogue Avenue, Ballymun, said he slapped the woman student in a “moment of madness”.
He pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting her on Shanard Avenue, Santry, on October 30th 2009 and has been registered as a sex offender.
Drug problem
Passing sentence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, Judge Patricia Ryan said that although O’Shea was making progress with his drug problem in custody, he was still on cannabis. Because of this continuing use of illicit drugs, she adjourned sentencing on the second case and ordered an updated probation report. The sentence for the sexual assault was backdated to February 20th, 2013.
The court heard the woman had been on her way to DCU when O’Shea came up behind her, reached forward and “groped her with one hand”.
Det Adrian Mulligan told Gerardine Small, prosecuting, that O’Shea ran away but was identified on CCTV footage.
Slapped stranger
After his arrest he told gardaí he saw the woman walking by the bus stop and “slapped her” and ran off. O’Shea has 48 previous convictions including sending indecent messages by telephone, assaulting a garda, threats to kill, robbery, theft and burglary.
Luigi Rea, defending, said O’Shea began taking drugs at 16. He suffered from depression and at the time of the assault was using “large quantities of steroids”.
Separately, O’Shea pleaded guilty to threatening to kill or cause serious harm to his former girlfriend, Louise Jackson, and one of her colleagues, Stephen Preston, on January 2nd, 2013. Garda Clare Delaney said O’Shea had been in a relationship with Ms Jackson for six years and they had a child, but she broke up with him when he told her he had been charged with sexual assault.