Ex-garda jailed over drunken sexual assault on female pal

Officer given two-year sentence for attack on sleeping victim

A DRUNK garda who sexually assaulted a female friend as she slept in her hotel room was jailed for two years yesterday.

The pervert cop – since kicked off the force – attacked the woman during a charity event three years ago.

During the assault, her husband entered the room and put on a light, at which point the officer, with his trousers down, was ordered out.

The following day he apologised to the couple in a Facebook message, writing: “Unfortunately, loads of beer and Captain Morgan’s (rum) do not fit well with me.”

Judge Rory Maccabe called the attack “an opportunist and repellent sexual assault on a sleeping female”.

At Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court in Mayo, the judge described the fact the defendant, a married man with children, will lose his job as a significant penalty but added: “People have to accept the natural consequences of their actions.”

He refused a request by defence counsel Ken Fogarty for a suspended prison term. In an emotional victim impact statement the woman said: “I hated my body for not waking sooner. I am branded by the actions of another and I will carry this with me for ever.

“Not a day goes by that it does not affect me. It set me on a completely different course than the one I had taken.”