Attacker told woman he would rape and kill her

A MAN described as being ‘like an animal’ during a vicious attack on a woman he had met in a nightclub has been jailed for four years.

Raymond Stewart, 31, threw the woman to the ground in a laneway in the early hours of the morning and told her he was going to rape her and kill her afterwards.

Garda Declan Murphy told the Central Criminal Court that Stewart was living in Galway city at the time of this offence.

He said the woman and Stewart, who were not known to each other, were socialising in the same nightclub.

The woman, whose friend had left, was stopped outside the bathroom by Stewart and went with him in a taxi believing friends were going back to his house. The woman tried to leave the house immediately when it became obvious there was no party going on.

Stewart’s housemate got up to intervene, allowing the woman to leave the house. Stewart then followed the woman through the estate, before assaulting her.

The victim said Stewart was ‘like an animal’ and described him kicking at her legs six or seven times trying to knock her to the ground. He also pushed her as she tried to leave the area.

He grabbed her at a laneway and threw her down, telling her: ‘You’re f **** d now.’

The woman described how Stewart’s Stewart: Followed his victim then-housemate came to the scene ‘out of the blue’ and dragged him off. She thanked this man in her victim-impact statement, saying she believed he had saved her that night.

Stewart, of Drumaveg, Moycullen, Co. Galway, shouted at the distressed woman, who ran from the scene, that she was ‘not worth raping’. He pleaded guilty to making a threat to kill and sexual assault of the woman at Sandy Road, Galway, on July 18, 2016.

Stewart, who has nine previous convictions, is currently serving a two-year sentence for assault causing harm and false imprisonment of another woman in February 2017. He also has a conviction for the assault of a former partner, as well as for public order offences.

Mr Justice Paul Butler said Stewart clearly had a difficulty with violence towards women which had not been properly addressed.

He imposed concurrent sentences totalling four years, giving credit for time that Stewart has spent in custody.

Threw her to the ground

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