A DUBLIN mother of two has told the Central Criminal Court that she tried to kill herself seven months after a teenager broke into her home and raped her.
The 41-year-old woman told Mr Justice Paul Carney that she had just gone to sleep having attended her aunt’s funeral when she woke up to find David McCartan, now aged 21 years, standing in her bedroom. She was alone in the house.
He put his hand over her mouth, pushed her back on the bed, told her to stay quiet and raped her. He told her afterwards “I’ve wanted to do you for a long time” before he threatened to kill her children if she reported him to the Garda.
The following year, while on bail for this offence, McCartan climbed into a a third-storey flat where he raped a 21-year-old girl having beaten up her boyfriend and dragged her from their bedroom. He was armed with a fork at the time that he had taken from their kitchen.
The victim later told gardaí that she could clearly see the name “David” tattooed on the man’s arm but he had his face covered with a bandana.
McCartan with an address at Casement Road, Finglas, pleaded guilty to two charges each of rape and burglary to commit rape and one charge of oral rape on May 3rd, 2007 and August 31st, 2008. He had previous convictions for minor public order offences.
Mr Justice Carney registered McCartan as a sex offender, remanded him in continuing custody and adjourned sentencing to later this week.
The 41-year-old woman read from her victim impact statement that she had taken an overdose in December 2007 because she did want to live anymore.
She said that on the night of the rape she had wanted to stay alive “not for me but for my children” but said that since then there had been times when she wished she had died that night, “so I could get some peace”.
“The day my aunt died I was raped. It will always be connected with that. I never grieved for my aunt,” the woman said.
“My son is angry with himself that he was not able to protect me and my daughter locks her door and pushes things against it. I did not feel safe in my own home,” the woman continued.
She told Mr Justice Carney that she has since moved out of Dublin, from the area where she grew up and from the house where she had brought up her children.
“I don’t want to move back to Dublin to the likes of him and all the antisocial behaviour,” the woman said as she pointed at McCartan. “It is quiet where I live now.”
She thanked Det Garda John Walsh, whom she said had showed so much compassion and made sure her case was heard, before she also thanked her family and the Director of Public Prosecutions “for believing me”.
Det Garda Adrian Mulligan read from the victim impact report of the second woman, in which she stated that the rape had “destroyed” her life. She “went out of control” after the attack and started drinking two bottles of Vodka a day “to stop thinking about it and to get through the day”.
She said she could not understand why McCartan had done that to her and she hoped that she would be able to put the incident behind her “in years to come”.
Thomas Creed SC, prosecuting, said the DPP put the offences at the “serious end of the scale” taking into account the fact that McCartan had first broken into both women’s homes.