Defence claimed profile photo said ‘want to meet for sex?’
AFTER Patrick Nevin was found guilty of sexually assaulting a student at UCD last November, he turned to his lawyers and said: “I don’t accept that verdict.”
Nevin seems to think that he has done nothing wrong.
We know this, because that’s what he said to gardaí when he was questioned about the UCD attack.
He was also ready to deny a rape charge this week, and only admitted to it and a second sexual assault charge when a judge ruled the jury could hear evidence of similar behaviour.
In this case, Nevin’s use of Tinder was to approach three women, then drive them to a secluded location to attack them.
Last November, the jury only took 90 minutes to find Nevin guilty of sexual assault.
During the trial, the defence team claimed Nevin had made it very clear what he wanted.
The defendant tried to paint the sexual assault to gardaí as nothing more than a hysterical woman overreacting when he innocently tried to kiss her.
The suggestion was that she should have known he’d try it on with her.
After all, he is seen posing shirtless in his Tinder profile picture.
“He’s basically saying ‘look at me, want to meet up for sex?’,” defence lawyer Paul Flannery SC told the jury.
Nevin told gardaí he believed they were “hooking up” – even though the woman never told him she wanted to meet up for sex.
His interviews with gardaí are interesting, not least because we are afforded a disturbing view of his mindset. He said he believed they were probably meeting for sex because he had told her on Tinder that he was a porn star.
Nevin told gardaí this was obviously banter, but she seemed quite interested in his job. He also told her he would like her to star in a film with him, and he claimed she told him “that interests me very much”.
He said he drove to a secluded area in UCD and leaned over to kiss her. She told him it was too soon and she did not know him.
“I did try and kiss her and when she asked me to stop and pushed me off, I stopped immediately,” he claimed.
Disturbingly, Nevin thought his advances would have been welcome.