A man who kidnapped a Spanish au pair, raped her, and committed other extreme acts of abuse has had his sentence adjourned by Mr Justice Paul Carney.
David Mullen, a 29-year-old father of two, apologised to the victim after subjecting her to an ordeal lasting some two-and-a-half hours at Library Road, Dún Laoghaire, saying "I have raped you", gave her his name and offered to walk her home.
He told her he wanted to have a girlfriend to have meals and attend the cinema with and asked her to meet him again the next day at a Dún Laoghaire venue.
Mullen, with addresses at Knockmore Crescent, Tallaght, and Tymon Hall Park, Kingswood, was seen shortly afterwards by gardaí standing at a taxi rank with dirt on his hands and was taken to Dún Laoghaire Garda station for a drugs search that proved negative.
The rape complaint had been made in the meantime and a few minutes after his release on the drugs matter, Mullen was re-arrested. He admitted the rape to gardaí and pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to eight charges arising out of the events on April 9th, 2005.
Mullen, a maintenance operative at the Stephen's Green and Dún Laoghaire shopping centres, admitted false imprisonment of the 23-year-old victim, rape, oral rape, attempted rape, sexual assault by digital anal and vaginal penetration, aggravated sexual assault, robbery of her credit card and making a threat that she would be unable to have babies, intending she should believe it.
Mr Justice Carney said he wanted time to consider the evidence and adjourned sentence until this morning.
Garda Richard Reddin told Mr Tony Hunt, prosecuting, that the victim was walking home after socialising with friends when Mullen ran after her and hauled her into a yard off Library Road.
Mullen told her he wanted to have a girlfriend and suggested they could be boyfriend and girlfriend to have meals and visit the cinema together. He told her he was 28 and that his name was Dave Mullen and suggested they could meet at a designated place the next day, saying he would confess to having raped her. When she reached her home gardaí were alerted.
Garda Reddin said Mullen made full and frank admissions when interviewed He lived with a partner and their two children and had a previous conviction for breaking into cars, for which he carried out community service.
Mr Patrick Gageby SC said Mullen was in the mild mental handicap range and had spent long terms in special schools.
He had no prior history of sexual deviancy or aggression towards women and his previous conviction showed he was a person who was capable of being supervised by the probation service.
Mr Gageby said he accepted the court had to impose "a jail sentence of quite a length" but suggested that it "might consider marking out when Mullen could be allowed re-enter society under strict supervision".