Ex-Ros na Rún actor jailed for ‘predatory, callous’ rape
Six years for sex attack on woman, 20, he gave lift to
A FORMER Ros na Rún actor has been sentenced to six years in prison for what a judge said was the ‘predatory’ and ‘callous’ rape of a young woman he was giving a lift home to.
Garrett Phillips, 46, was convicted of orally raping the woman on the outskirts of Galway city in the early hours of November 5, 2015.
The married father-of-two had pleaded not guilty to raping the 20-year-old but while passing sentence at the Central Criminal Court yesterday, Judge Eileen Creedon said there was a ‘predatory element’ to the sex attack.
‘She was vulnerable, alone in a park late at night and visibly upset,’ said the judge.
‘He made her feel safe by offering his jacket, kind words and a lift home, but he never brought her home.’
Judge Creedon said it was ‘an area of concern’ that Phillips still did not accept full responsibility for the offence and believed it had been consensual.
She ordered that he be assessed for a therapeutic programme to obtain a greater degree of understanding and insight into his offending and its impact on the victim.
The judge quoted from the victim-impact statement, read out in court previously, in which the woman said she had been confident, happy and achieving well in her studies before the attack by Phillips.
‘My life was a train on a track in the right direction,’ the woman said. However, over two an a half years later, she is a ‘changed person’ and has failed to progress in university despite her best efforts, she said.
She is attending counselling and is taking anti-depressants and no longer participates in sport, despite the central role it used to play in her life.
She also said that she has questioned her will to live and struggles with the feeling that the rape was her fault.
She says in the time since the assault, she still feels like the same 20-year-old girl banging on a door for help.
The court process, during which she had to sit inches from her attacker, was one of the hardest things she had ever had to do.
She was forced to speak about something painful and made to feel like a liar when giving her evidence over two days.
Judge Creedon said the headline sentence for the offence was eight years, but that she took account of Phillips’s lack of previous convictions in handing him a six-year sentence.
She also cited some letters that came from Phillips’s siblings, describing him as a devoted husband and father.
Judge Creedon noted that Phillips had lost his marriage and was out of work, and had offered an apology to his family through his lawyer and to the victim for the ‘emotional impact’ on her.
A probation report placed him at a low risk of re-offending. The court heard that Phillips initially worked in his family’s business before getting into acting and had been appearing on stage in London up to his trial.
Detective Garda Evelyn Barrett told Paul Burns SC, prosecuting, that Phillips of St Mary’s Terrace, Taylor’s Hill, Galway, approached the woman as she sat alone and upset on a park bench and offered her a lift home in his van.
The woman took the lift and, on the way, Phillips asked her if she had ever seen an overview of the city lights.
The woman replied that she hadn’t and fell asleep.
When she woke up Phillips was no longer in the driver’s seat but standing over her orally raping her.
The detective said the woman reacted strongly, got out of the van, memorised the registration number and ran to a nearby home for help.
During the trial, the jury heard that Phillips claimed the encounter was consensual. He told gardaí that it had started off ‘very tender’ and felt ‘chemical’ between him and the woman.
Defence counsel Barry White SC submitted that Phillips wished to ‘unreservedly apologise for his behaviour’. He said his client had not informed his wife about the matter until the evening before his trial.
Mr White said that Phillips had been appearing on stage in London in the run-up to the trial because there was ‘not just one victim in the case, there are four’, referring to Phillips’s wife and two children. Mr White also claimed it was highly unlikely that his client would ever gain employment in acting again.
Mr Burns submitted that there were no exceptional circumstances in the case, adding that other convicted people have families and experience similar problems with employment.
Only told his wife night before trial