A 25-year-old man has been jailed for ten years for raping and falsely imprisoning a middle aged woman at a location in Cork last year.
Mr Justice Paul Carney said that he found himself in the unusual position of finding no mitigating factors in the case of the accused.
A detective had earlier told the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork that the man had dragged the woman into a field on the night of May 23rd, 2011 where he held her against her will for an hour.
During this time, the man attempted to rape her, orally raped her and sexually assaulted her in a secluded area shielded from a roadway by trees, the detective told the court.
The officer also read out a victim impact statement from the woman in which she told how memories of the attack continue to haunt her and she has attempted suicide since the incident.
The attack continues to have a huge impact on her life as she has lost her confidence and feels a sense of shame at what the man did to her during the ordeal, the court heard.
The accused was found guilty of a total of four offences in relation to the incident by a jury of eight men and four women following an 11 day trial in Cork in February
The jury found the man unanimously guilty of falsely imprisoning the woman, sexually assaulting her and attempted rape while they found him guilty of orally raping her by a 10-2 majority.
Mr Justice Carney was told the 25-year-old man had been in care from the age of 10 and had a serious drink and drug problem and ended up living on the streets for five years.
He said that drink and drugs offered nothing in terms of defence or mitigation and his dysfunctional upbringing also offered nothing of significance in terms of mitigation.
He said that he fully accept the DPP’s view that the random nature of the attack and the duration of the incident were aggravating factors which put it at the upper end of the scale of such offences.
He also noted the man had previous convictions as he sentenced him to 10 years in jail and ordered that he be placed on the register of sex offenders.