A man who tricked a young woman into coming back to his apartment by telling her he was gay has been jailed for eight years for rape and false imprisonment.
Samir Mansour (46), originally from Tunisia with an address at Windmill Hill, Prospect, Mullingar, had pleaded not guilty to rape, sexual assault, false imprisonment and making threats to kill at his Westmeath home on January 8th, 2010.
He invited her to a party in his place that night but when she went back there was nobody else there. As she went to leave, he grabbed her by the arm and flung her back into the room. She said his mood had changed completely and he looked “terrifying”.
“You could see the anger in his eyes and I knew something bad was going to happen,” the victim told the jury.
Crying
She said she started hitting him but he was too strong. He took her into the bedroom and raped her, she told the court.
He told her: “Five minutes of this won’t kill you, but if you don’t do what I say, I will.”
After a few minutes he stopped, sat on the bed and began crying. He said he was sorry and that she had to forgive him. She said he said something about being “stoned”, and asked her if she would go out to dinner with him.
She said she comforted the accused because she was afraid of him but then fled. It was almost 5am when she phoned her father and asked him to get her.
The jury returned a guilty verdict on all counts after seven hours of deliberation following a seven-day trial at the Central Criminal Court.
Win trust
Ms Justice Iseult O’Malley remarked that the threats to kill and blind his victim must have been a terrifying ordeal for her. The judge noted that she had suffered bruising, nightmares and flashbacks since the incident as well as an internal injury.
She also took into account the fact that Mansour had lied to his 20-year-old victim about being gay in order to win her trust.
In her victim impact report the woman said the attack had affected every aspect of her life and left her feeling fearful, distrustful and paranoid.
She said she spent every day wondering why she went back to Mansour’s flat that night.
The court heard Mansour had no previous convictions and had been working as a chef in Pasta Bella restaurant in Mullingar. He has a 14-year-old son from a marriage that is now dissolved.
Ms Justice O’Malley handed down a 9½-year sentence for the rape and sexual assault charges, and suspended the final 18 months of both. Mansour also received a six-year sentence for false imprisonment, and four years for making threats to kill. All sentences are to run concurrently.
Ms Justice O’Malley ordered that he be put under post-release supervision for five years upon completion of the sentence. However, she said leaving the State would not breach this condition.