Rapist gets two-year sentence for groping women

A Dublin multiple rapist has received a partially suspended two-year sentence for daylight sex assaults on two different women in the city centre.

Paul Moore (50) engaged both young women in conversation before groping their breasts. He was on bail for the first offence when he committed the second.

Moore, of Mountjoy Square, Dublin, has 11 previous convictions and has served prison sentences for three rape offences, as well as sexual and indecent assaults on women dating back to the 1980s.

He pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to sexually assaulting one woman at Gardiner Street on January 21st, 2015 and to sexually assaulting the other woman at St Mary's Place North, on May 8th.

Judge Martin Nolan noted that Moore "has a predisposition to violence towards women which manifests as rape and sexual assault".

The judge said he must sentence on the basis of the crimes and imposed an 18-month prison term for the second offence, to run consecutively to six months in jail for the first offence.

He backdated these sentences to when Moore entered custody in May this year and suspended the final nine months.

Cigarette

Garda Gavin O'Gara told Gerardine Small, prosecuting, that Moore approached the first woman, who is in her early 20s, for a cigarette as she was walking to work.

While he spoke to her, he put his right palm on her breast and squeezed.

The woman told gardaí she turned her body away and kept talking to Moore out of nervousness, but later reported the offence.

Gardaí arrested Moore after the woman gave a description of the attacker.

Garda O’Gara said Moore made some admissions in interview and was released on bail, having initially been charged for a simple assault.

Det Garda Jonathan Brady told the court that Moore approached the other woman, who is in her late teens, for a cigarette as she made her way to a pharmacy.

He stood close to her on the road as she rolled him a cigarette and then touched her nipple over her clothes.

The teenager jumped back and froze, but answered Moore’s questions until he grabbed her breast again.

Gardaí later took a statement from this woman and identified Moore from CCTV of the area.

During his interview, Moore claimed he had not intentionally touched the woman’s breast and that he had apologised.

The women’s victim impact statements were handed up to the judge but were not read in court.

Both gardaí agreed with Breffni Gordon, defending, that his client had impaired speech.

Mr Gordon submitted to the judge that Moore had suffered smoke inhalation from a nightclub fire when he was a young man and soon after received a brain injury in a serious car crash.

Counsel submitted his client was “extremely lonely” and that his life had deteriorated since the crash.

He asked the judge to take into account Moore’s early guilty plea and submitted the crimes were at the lower end of the scale.