Every woman’s worst nightmare
Gardai suspect local youths with history of offences of involvement in Clondalkin attack, writes
THE Ninth Lock Road is almost always busy. The road, also known as the Lucan Newlands Road, cuts through Ronanstown in west Dublin. It links Lucan to Clondalkin, shaving past the Neilstown Road and the Clondalkin Industrial Estate.
Local people say that even at night cars zoom past. There are clusters of shops along the route. The Mill Shopping Centre is down at the Clondalkin end. Walking up the road towards Neilstown, there is a 24-hour Esso Service Station that serves customers through a hatch after dark.
Like most service stations, its late night customers encompass everyone from passing motorists, party goers, local youths and shift workers.
In the early hours of Thursday morning, one young woman cycled along this busy road, coming from the Clondalkin area, on her way home.
Gardai have released scant details about this young woman in order to protect her identity. However, it is believed that she is aged in her thirties, and was coming home from work.
On the way, she stopped off at the Esso station after 3am, ordered what she wanted, paid and left. The young woman continued up the Ninth Lock Road but, according to garda sources, she did not get back on her bike but pushed it as she walked along. Judging by the distance, it probably would have taken her a little over five minutes to reach the junction with the Neilstown Road.
Gardai said it was 3.20am when she was attacked. It happened as she pushed her bike along the footpath, running beside a small park. Dense bushes bordering the path may have concealed her attackers as she approached. When she passed by, three men jumped on her and dragged her into the park. One of the men produced a knife. Two men held her down while the third man allegedly raped her, according to sources.
After the attack, the three men fled on foot. The young woman somehow managed to dial 999. Detectives from Ronanstown Garda Station, less than 500 meters farther along the road, were with her in minutes.
Distraught and traumatised, she told them what had happened before being brought to the sexual assault unit in the Rotunda Hospital in the city.
The young woman’s bike lay on the ground, marking the spot where she had been dragged away.
By 9am forensics officers covered the area in plastic sheeting and cordoned it off.
Within hours ‘Woman Raped in Park’ screamed the chilling headlines. As many people commented last week, she had lived through a nightmare universally dreaded by women — to be attacked by total strangers lying in wait under cover of darkness.
Most horrifying was the opportunistic and random nature of this attack. As the People Before Profit councillor Madeleine Johansson said in the days after the attack: “The news emerging that this rape was committed by more than one person and by strangers in an open space makes this crime particularly frightening, and leaves the community feeling vulnerable.”
There have been at least two unprovoked attacks in the Clondalkin area in the past year — both of them were assaults on women.
This was different. The revulsion in the local communities was palpable and loud. Mark Ward, a Sinn Fein councillor who lives in Clondalkin, said: “What happened here was at the extreme level and it just horrified people... It just unified a lot of people.”
Out canvassing in Neilstown on Friday morning, calling door to door, all people talked about was how angry they were at what had happened to this young woman.
That local anger has proved invaluable to the garda investigation. As word of the attack spread, calls began coming in to Ronanstown Garda Station, at first a trickle and gain- ing momentum throughout the day.
According to sources, many of the calls were from local people, offering information about some of the gangs of youths that prowl the neighbourhood at night. Other callers gave more specific information about people of interest that gardai should check out.
Garda took CCTV footage from the Esso Service Station. The footage captured not only the young woman minutes before she was so brutally attacked, but also captured the faces of some of the youths out in the area that night, who stopping off to buy cigarettes or sweets or drinks at the 24-hour service station.
By Friday morning, detectives had enough information to identify two suspects. One was 19, and the other 21. They were local and they were known to gardai for minor theft and public order offences. According to reports yesterday, they had 30 convictions between them.
It has also transpired that both men were on bail for other offences at the time of the attack on Thursday.
The men were arrested at their homes early on Friday morning and held at Lucan Garda Station.
They were released without charge late on Friday night. This weekend, gardai are hunting the third suspect, who has apparently gone on the run.
The young woman is recovering from the attack. She spoke to gardai on Friday and specialist detectives are expected to take a detailed statement from her in the coming days. DNA, and forensic evidence taken from the woman’s clothing, is likely to yield further clues as to who the attackers were.
Public anger has fuelled the investigation. The community was horrified, but local politicians also believe that people should take heart in the community’s powerful response.
According to Mark Ward, the area has its social problems but the community is strong.
“There is a really, really good community spirit here. That’s where the anger is coming from,” said Ward.
“I have a young daughter myself. It is just horrific.”
Breda Bonnar, a Labour councillor and school principal, said gardai have forged a strong bond with local communities, and they have a “success rate” in solving crimes.
The attack last week was “a crime of violence and domination, it is a heinous crime”, she said. But there is a bigger picture, which is the prevalence of rape and sexual violence, and what society can do about it.
Noelin Blackwell, the chief executive of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, said that the attack last week in Clondalkin was a “classic nightmare attack” by a stranger on a victim.
One-in-four victims of rape treated at the Rape Crisis Centre is attacked by a stranger, and it results in “huge levels of stress and trauma”.
Most women who are raped are likely to know their attackers, and rape continues to go under reported in Ireland.
‘The attack last week was “a crime of violence and domination, it is a heinous crime”’