Nevin assaulted women he met on Tinder dating app
A UCD graduate who had previously been convicted of sexually assaulting a student pleaded guilty to carrying out sex attacks on two other women he met on the Tinder dating app.
The trial of Patrick Nevin (36) with addresses at Meadowlands, Dun Laoighaire, and previously Dundalk, County Louth, for the rape of a woman in a parked car at a location in Co Meath in July 2014 was due to begin at the Central Criminal Court last week.
Nevin and the woman had met on the dating programme Tinder and the attack took place on their first date.
His last minute plea of guilty followed a legal ruling which allowed the prosecution to introduce evidence from two other women of Nevin attacking them on a first date.
The former UCD student was convicted by a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court last December of sexually assaulting one of these women, a Brazilian student, after driving her to the UCD campus in south Dublin on July 23rd, 2014. He had denied the offence.
But at the court in Dublin last week Nevin also pleaded guilty to rape of one woman at Bellewstown, Co Meath on July 12th, 2014 and to sexual assault of a second woman at an unknown place in Co Meath on July 16th, 2014.
He was facing trial later this year in relation to the third victim. The three attacks over an 11 day period all followed ‘similar modus operandi.’
The court was told all attacks took place when Nevin had met up with the women after talking to them first online. In each case Nevin picked up the women in his car on a first date and drove them to a secluded spot.
The father of two is in custody since his conviction last December. He will be sentenced on July 26th, 2018 when victim impact reports will be given to the court.
The evidence of the Brazilian woman, now aged 35, was heard during the trial last December. She had just arrived in Ireland and wanted to meet Irish people to practice her English.
After some weeks of communicating with Nevin on the Tinder dating programme and on Whatsapp, she arranged to meet him. He told her he would take her to a place that had the ‘ best coffee in Dublin’ but Nevin later told gardaí he saw the date as a ‘ hook up’ for sex.
Nevin picked her up in his car, a blue BMW, and drove her to a secluded field on the UCD campus. The woman said his demeanour then ‘changed completely’ and he became aggressive.
She said he became like ‘a monster’. She said that he attacked her and she was in fear of her life and thought Nevin was going to rape her.
During legal argument Nevin’s lawyers asked the court to order media organisations to remove reports of previous trials and offending. Ms Justice Creedon ruled against the defence application, saying the court was not satisfied there was a real risk of an unfair trial if the material was not taken down.
She noted Justice Patrick McCarthy’s recent comments in the High Court that juries ‘should be trusted and that courts must accept the fact that there may be material relevant to a defendant online during a trial.’