A building worker who raped a Latvian woman last year while she was on her way to work at 8am has been jailed for 11 years by Mr Justice Paul Carney at the Central Criminal Court.
Philip Murphy (26), a father of three with addresses at Elmbrook Crescent, Lucan and Lindisfarne Vale, Clondalkin, Dublin, raped the victim in his car after offering her a lift to her work.
The woman put the registration number of his car into her mobile phone when he drove away after the rape and immediately told work colleagues what had happened.
Murphy denied to gardaí when arrested that his car was in the area that morning or that he ever met the victim but claimed in evidence in his trial that she had been with him twice before and that they had a sexual liaison. He also told the jury that she asked him to drive to a suitable place for them to have sex.
The jury reached its 10-2 majority verdict on the rape charge after almost seven hours of deliberations and failed to reach a verdict on a second charge of false imprisonment after a five-day trial in July.
Niall Durnin SC, prosecuting, entered a nolle prosequi on the kidnap charge.
Mr Justice Carney noted that newspaper reports handed into court on behalf of Murphy showed he was currently serving a three-year sentence for stabbing a taxi-driver in the neck but said this hadn't been fully explained to him in earlier evidence.
"This man is clearly an enormous danger to society," he said.
Mr Justice Carney directed that Murphy be registered as a sex offender and undergo seven years post-release supervision. He said the threat to kill was "a credible one".
Det Sgt Colm Church told Mr Durnin that Murphy asked the victim for a light after he pulled up alongside her in his car while she was walking to her job nearby at about 8am on June 4th, 2005.
She accepted his offer to drive her to work but he drove past it and parked his car with the passenger side against a wall so that she couldn't get out.
Det Sgt Church said Murphy then threatened her with a knife saying: "I want sex or I will kill you." She was afraid she would be killed and had intercourse with him by sitting on him.
Ms Isobel Kennedy SC, defending, noted that her client still maintained it was a consensual sexual liaison.
Ms Kennedy said Murphy came from "a difficult and dysfunctional background".
