Man who bound and raped sex worker in his home sent to jail

A CO Down man who raped a sex worker after binding her hands and feet with cable ties was handed an eight-year sentence yesterday.

Ordering Gary Doak (49) to spend half his sentence in jail and half under supervised licence, Newry Crown Court Judge Gordon Kerr QC also ordered him to stay on the sex offenders register for life.

At an earlier hearing Doak, from Dickson Park in Seapatrick, just outside Banbridge, entered guilty pleas to rape, a serious sexual assault charge, unlawfully and injuriously imprisoning the victim, assaulting her occasioning actual bodily harm and common assault on March 9, 2017.

Repeating the agreed facts yesterday, the judge outlined how Doak contacted his victim through an online advert where she offered “a wide range of services, including BDSM, fetishes, role play and fantasy”, agreeing a fee of £200 for her to come to his home.

When she got there Doak “perpetrated a sustained and multi-faceted assault upon the complainant, both sexual and physical, with the defendant’s behaviour vacillating between aggressive and meek behaviour”.

He told the court that during the woman’s visit, Doak “became threatening”, took her to a bedroom and “bound her with cable ties around her neck, wrists and ankles”. “He tried to put a sock over her head, eventually putting it sideways in her mouth and tied it at the back of her head,” which terrified the victim. He then “returned with a cup of tea and spoke to her in a calm manner and cut her ankle ties”. It was then, however, said Judge Kerr, that Doak raped her and committed another sexual offence.

“Still bound, she was then taken to the bathroom where the defendant washed her and the complainant thought he would let her leave”, but instead Doak took her back to the bedroom “where there was a struggle”.

The court heard the victim was terrified that Doak intended to cause her serious injury.

Having run to the kitchen, she “grabbed some knives” and there was a further struggle with Doak “slightly injured” by a blade and both biting each other.

The woman’s ordeal ended “with both parties lying on the kitchen floor and the defendant telling the complainant he had panicked and suffered flashbacks to the war”.

While Doak sustained scratches and bruises to his face and arms and an injury “consistent with a knife”, his victim had suffered ligature marks around her wrists, bruising to her neck, arms and legs and “multiple areas of red marks”.

When the police examined Doak’s mobile phone, officers uncovered “a significant internet search history for sex workers” along with evidence of searches for depictions of sex “with an element of force”.

During his sentencing remarks Judge Kerr listed numerous ag- gravating factors including there being “more than one sexual attack”, Doak being “aggressive and threatening” and the degradation of how the forced sex act culminated.

He said while the defence had contended that taking the victim to the bathroom to wash her showed a degree of compassion, the judge told the court: “I reject that; washing her was part of him further degrading her.”

“Mr McKay (defence QC) referred to the fact that she was a sex worker and the services she advertised included bondage, fetish and BDSM. While he didn’t specifically submit that it was a mitigating factor, he did leave the suggestion there — but I make it clear that I reject that suggestion entirely,” declared Judge Kerr.

He added that “no matter the background, if there is no consent then there is an offence... the background of a victim can never be mitigation for rape”.

What was a mitigating point was Doak’s guilty plea, which spared his victim from having to give evidence “which could have been difficult for her”, he said.

Turning to the various reports, Judge Kerr said while he assessed Doak was dangerous and a “high risk of sexual reoffending”, he was not satisfied he posed a “significant risk of causing serious harm” so heightened sentencing powers such as an extended sentence, did not come into play. In addition to the jail term and sex offenders register, Judge Kerr imposed a 12-year sexual offences prevention order. FORMER Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams has denied he ordered the killing of farmer Tom Oliver by the IRA in 1991.

Mr Adams also said he did not believe — although he did not know for sure — he was the man identified by Garda Commissioner Drew Harris to a State inquiry in the Republic as the person he believed had ordered the killing.

Mr Oliver, from Co Louth, was abducted, tortured and murdered and his body found in Belleek, Co Armagh, in July 1991.

In 2012, Mr Harris, then an Assistant Chief Constable in the PSNI, provided in writing the name of the IRA army council member he believed had ordered the killing.

This week he was questioned about Mr Oliver’s case at a Dail committee. He said the information was with the PSNI and it was up to the PSNI to determine what actions to take next.

Following the hearing and comments made on radio station LMFM by Independent TD Peter Fitzpatrick, Mr Adams was questioned on the same station about the Oliver case. Mr Adams was asked if he believed his was the name written on the paper by Mr Harris, to which he replied: “No I don’t think so. Well I don’t know, that’s the God’s honest truth.”

He was asked, on behalf of the Oliver family, if he knew who had ordered the killing. He said: “I don’t know anyone who was involved in this unfortunate man’s killing or any of the events which led to it. I know it wasn’t me.”

Mr Adams said it was “exceptional” that he would be asked such questions. He also repeatedly said he believed the Oliver family, and others, deserved to get to the truth of what happened to their relatives. But he stopped short of calling on Mr Harris to clarify that the name he wrote down was not Gerry Adams.

He said: “That’s a matter for him. I’m not going to interfere with him in terms of the operational responsibilities that he has. I know it wasn’t me so I’m content in my own skin on this issue.”