A Kildare man is seeking work to raise the £1,500 compensation outstanding for a £150an-hour "escort girl" he assaulted in 1996, a court heard yesterday. James Byrne (47) was finding it difficult to get a job and needed time to raise the money. He had the substantial sum of £1,000 in court, said Mr Seamus Sorahan SC, defending.
Judge Cyril Kelly agreed with an application by Mr Sorahan to change the signing-on conditions of Byrne's bail so he could be available for work during the week. In April Byrne, of Standhouse Road, Newbridge, pleaded guilty to assaulting and injuring the unnamed woman in Jurys Inn, Christchurch, Dublin, on March 27th, 1996.
His case was adjourned on bail to yesterday after he paid over £1,000 in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. He was ordered to raise an additional £2,500.
The court was told at the April hearing that he assaulted the woman when she tried to stop him taking photographs of her lying naked in a hotel bedroom.
Byrne had first met the middleclass and "cultured" housewife at the Gentlemen's Club escort agency after responding to an advert in In Dublin magazine, Garda Fiona Cornally said.
He continued to see the woman, paying £150 an hour for their meetings, and thought romance was blossoming. The woman received £90 and the agency £60. During the period the woman moved to the Ambassador escort agency and continued seeing Byrne.
Mr Sorahan (with Mr Sean Deegan) said that for "chivalrous and humanitarian reasons" he had arranged with the prosecution that the victim would not be named in open court to spare her further distress. Garda Cornally said the woman's partner and her children had no idea about the nature of her part-time work and she was terrified they would find out.
A week after the assault gardai raided Byrne's home and found the photographs and negatives he had taken in the hotel bedroom. They also found documentation on the woman's family as well as unconnected magazines.
Garda Cornally also agreed with Mr George Birmingham, prosecuting, there had been "a degree of contact" following the incident.
Judge Kelly ordered the seized information relating to the woman returned to her or destroyed. He also warned Byrne not to contact or beset the victim, her family or friends or to get anyone else to do so on his behalf.
"I will make no moral judgment on any impropriety of a respectable housewife from a salubrious part of Dublin earning money as an escort," said Judge Kelly. But such services had "underworld" connotations.
Garda Cornally told Mr Birmingham that Byrne and the woman checked into the hotel at 12.30 p.m. and went to the bedroom.
Later the woman was asleep on the bed and woke up to see the flashes of Byrne's camera. When she tried to take the camera, she was thrown against the wall, punched in the face and kicked.
A couple in the next bedroom heard her screams and raised the alarm. Byrne was held by security men as he hurried half-dressed from the building.
Garda Cornally said the woman was initially reluctant to tell gardai anything. The next day she called to gardai in Pearse Street by appointment and made a statement. Byrne was outside the Garda station and, when arrested, declined to answer questions.
Mr Sorahan said both parties had had a lot to drink. Byrne had openly booked the room in his own name as he had done a month previously. He had not hired it for any "sadistic" purposes, counsel said.
He stressed his client had only two previous convictions: one was a road traffic matter and the other was the larceny of golf clubs.
Byrne had got a "taste of justice" having been in custody for three weeks on remand. He did not have a "hardened secret sex life" and was ashamed of his actions. He realised taking the photographs had been "despicable conduct and a low trick", said Mr Sorahan.
From the witness box Byrne apologised to the woman and undertook not to contact the victim or her family.