DNA links man to three attacks on women in five years, court told
A MAN has gone on trial accused of carrying out three attacks on women over a fiveyear period.
Slawomir Gierlowski (33), of Galtymore Road, Drimnagh, Dublin, is charged with falsely imprisoning and assaulting a woman in September 2016 at a location near the Naas Road, Clondalkin.
He is also charged with unlawfully having a hunting knife with intent to intimidate on the same occasion.
Mr Gierlowski is also charged with false imprisonment, sexual assault and assault of a second woman at another location in Clondalkin on September 3, 2015. Finally, he is charged with false imprisonment, sexual assault and assault of a third woman at this same location on September 11, 2011.
Yesterday morning at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, Mr Gierlowski pleaded not guilty to all nine charges.
Opening the State’s case, Roisin Lacey SC, prosecuting, told the jury of 12 men that it was unusual to have an allmale jury.
Summarising the evidence the jury will hear, she said that in the first attack in September
2011, a woman was walking home after a night out. A man came up from behind a woman and began choking her and tried to cover her mouth.
Ms Lacey said the man began punching the woman in the face and then pushed her to the ground, before putting his hand up her skirt and rubbing her outside her underwear. She said that the attack ended suddenly and the attacker ran off.
She said that in September
2015, a man came up behind the second victim and put a belt around her neck. The man pulled her to the ground and sat on her.
The woman was screaming and the man began wrapping duct tape around her face and hands. The man turned her over onto her stomach and put his hand on her genitalia, she said.
This attack ended when the people in the nearby house heard the woman’s screams and called gardaí, who arrived and chased the attacker but he got away, she added.
Ms Lacey told the jury that a year later, a man armed with a hunting knife attacked a third woman as she walked to work in the early morning.
He held the knife to her throat but she fought back and the attacker ran off.
A subsequent Garda investigation identified a white van parked in the area, which gardaí linked to Mr Gierlowski.
A blood-stained jacket was found at his home and an opened packet of cable ties found in the van.
Ms Lacey told the jury that DNA found on the blood on the jacket matched the DNA of the woman attacked in September 2016.
She said his DNA was linked to the underwear of the first and second victims and to masking tape used on the second woman’s hands.
The trial continues.