BEACH RAPIST ‘SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN JAIL AT THE TIME’
Ahead of horror attack, gardaí saw Eoin Berkeley in Dublin 2 in breach of his bail terms... but didn’t act
VIOLENT sex attacker Eoin Berkeley was on bail when he sadistically and repeatedly raped a Spanish student on wasteland, it can be revealed.
Berkeley was yesterday jailed for 14 years but arrived at the Midlands jail afterwards ‘in great spirits’ and crowing to fellow inmates about his
‘light’ sentence, a prison source said.
The 25-year-old had been on bail in July last year for an offence of criminal damage when he befriended and then savagely raped a ‘naive’ 18-year-old woman.
Previously he had been seen by gardaí flouting his bail conditions, sources say. No move was made to have his bail revoked. A source said: ‘There is no way of sugar-coating this. An Garda Síochána dropped the ball on this one. But he was flouting his bail when he raped that poor girl.’
Berkeley was yesterday jailed by a Central Criminal Court judge who said the violent sex attacks were ‘particularly degrading’.
Since the attacks in Dublin 4 in July
last year he had been remanded in custody and arrived back at the Midlands prison after the sentencing hearing.
A prison source said: ‘He thought he would get a much longer stretch. He was pleased with himself and bragging and boasting about how soon he’ll be out when he got back to the Midlands.’
It emerged yesterday that Berkeley had been on bail at the time of the rapes after being charged over homophobic graffiti on the facade of a gay bar in Dublin two months earlier. He had appeared at the District Court in May 2017 charged with criminal damage but was granted bail on condition he stay out of the Dublin 2 area, stay sober and be of good behaviour.
At the time, District Judge Deirdre Gearty had warned Berkeley he risked being held on remand in prison if he broke the bail terms.
Berkeley, however, ignored the judge’s warning and over the following weeks was seen by individual gardaí repeatedly flouting the bail conditions by being in Dublin 2.
On two occasions on June and July he was spotted directly opposite The George gay bar he had allegedly vandalised.
However no move was made to revoke his bail.
A senior security source yesterday told the Mail: ‘An Garda Síochána dropped the ball on this one. Many arms of the State did throughout Berkeley’s life. He must have felt invincible: noone was stopping him.
‘Over the course of his young, chaotic life he acted out. In a weird way he was almost begging to be taken seriously, to be dealt with in some way. His violence and mental health problems just grew and grew until the worst happened.’
Asked to comment on the Berkeley case, the Garda Press Office said: ‘An Garda Síochána cannot comment on named individuals.’
Just two months after being granted bail Berkeley raped a ‘naive’ Spanish 18-year-old language student over a 21-hour period at the old Irish Glass Bottle site in Ringsend.
During what the judge said was a degrading attack, Berkeley tied up the woman, drugged her, threatened to cut off her hands and boasted of killing others.
The student was held hostage and repeatedly raped between July 15 and 16 last year in Berkeley’s tent on the wasteland.
She eventually escaped and raised the alarm in a panicked phone call to her father. He later described the call as, without a doubt, the worst telephone conversation he ever had.
Berkeley was found nearby and arrested within hours. He did not even seem to have been attempting to hide.
Since late July of last year, Berkeley, from Finglas, north Dublin, had been in custody awaiting trial for the rape. He later admitted rape.
One senior security source said: ‘So finally he was stopped. He’s been in custody for almost a year and a half and now he will spend the next ten years of his life locked up for the most despicable crime.
‘But it should never have got to this point.
‘He should have been helped years ago so he didn’t turn into such a monster intent on destroying lives.’
Michael Bowman, defending, told the Central Criminal Court his client had endured a ‘very, very difficult and interrupted upbringing’.
He said alcohol was a considerable feature of Berkeley’s family life and his mother had considerable difficulties of a psychological nature which were compounded by alcohol. She knew she could not look after him and put him into foster care. By the age of 12 Berkeley’s behavioural problems had become worse and he was taken out of school for extreme violence.
There were some accounts that during his difficult upbringing Berkeley had been exposed to sexually abusive behaviour, Mr Bowman said.
A month before Berkeley abducted and raped the student, a Garda inspector directed his detention under the Mental Health Act.
This followed after he barricaded himself into his home in Finglas and made threats to harm himself and others.
Following his detention, he was seen by a doctor who deemed him fit to be released.
Two days later, Berkeley’s brother rang a Garda station and said Berkeley needed to be detained under the Act.
Gardaí told him there was no basis for his detention and advised that Berkeley seek medical attention.
After appearing in court charged with the Spanish student’s rape and abduction, he wrote in blood on the walls of a cell the words, ‘I’m sorry’.
Berkeley has more than 25 previous convictions.
On May 29, 2016, he was arrested after he was found with an imitation Kalashnikov rifle in the vicinity of Dublin Airport. Gardaí received numerous calls from members of the public.
Berkeley was sentenced to two and a half years in jail and claimed to gardaí he had found the gun in fields.
But it was not the first time he had imitation firearms in his possession. In April 2014, he was arrested for brandishing an imitation firearm on North Earl Street in Dublin city and was convicted for this offence.
Another serious offence was his conviction and five-month sentence in December 2016 for possession of a knife in O’Connell Street in August of that year.
Berkeley also has numerous convictions for public order, abusive and
‘An Garda Síochána dropped the ball’
threatening behaviour, criminal damage and intoxication in a public place. He also has a burglary conviction for the theft of a Playstation and was given a four-month jail term in January 2014 for assaulting a man and threatening and abusing the investigating garda who took him into custody.
Berkeley was, however, cleared of criminal damage at The George, the offence for which he was on bail when he raped the Spanish student.
The District Court had heard Berkeley was wearing a ‘raccoon onesie’ outfit when he was arrested.
The case of criminal damage against him from May was dismissed in February this year following legal arguments.
When gardaí arrested Berkeley for the rape in July last year they found it difficult to interview him and difficult to discern fantasy from truth in what he was saying.
Berkeley told them that everybody in his family was bipolar and reported seeing things that were not there and making friends with things that were not there, the court heard.
He was taking 20mg of Denzapine, an anti-psychotic drug, yet spent most of his days hanging around a public place known as ‘the benches’ near Dame Street in Dublin city centre.
There he and other vagrant people would congregate and get into fights, the court heard.
Berkeley was well known to gardaí working in the city and often presented in conditions that caused concern for his mental health.
At one point he walked around the city dressed in a ‘raccoon onesie’, which Mr Bowman SC described as ‘bizarre behaviour’.
THAT a Spanish teenager should have come to Dublin in the summer of 2017 to enjoy the attractions of the city and improve her English, only to be abducted, subjected to multiple rapes, terrorised for 21 hours, and to have her life repeatedly threatened, is truly horrific. For such savagery to be exacted on anyone who visits these shores hoping to find a warm welcome in the expectation of returning home with only positive experiences, is a terrible betrayal of the Irish people by the perpetrator in question.
That perpetrator in this instance was Eoin Berkeley, a young man who now finds himself serving a 14-year-sentence for his despicable crime.
To make matters worse – if such a thing is possible in the context of this horrific attack – is to learn that Eoin Berkeley should have been behind bars on the day that he abducted this young woman.
He had been spotted by gardaí in a part of the city from which he had been barred, and so was deemed to be in breach of his bail conditions.
On a human level, and from the point of view of An Garda Síochána, there must be some degree of awareness that what we are dealing with here is an extremely troubled individual.
What, the gardaí may have asked themselves, would it achieve to force incarceration on this young man because he was in a part of the city where he should not have been? What, indeed, would be the point in pursuing this through the courts when, in all likelihood, he would simply be allowed to walk free? Gardaí have to make splitsecond judgement calls all the time. It is up to the judiciary, however, to decide on the appropriate punishment.
Whatever the specifics of the motivation, when the decision was taken that day not to arrest Eoin Berkeley, the consequences were catastrophic.
This now needs to be fully investigated and lessons must be learned from the farreaching fallout.