‘Tinder rapes’ not recorded by gardaí
Crisis Centre vows to start keeping data on attacks as we reveal
IRELAND lags behind the UK in recording rapes and sexual assaults committed after people meet through online dating sites.
An Garda Síochána has confirmed it does not record such data, and nor does the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre.
But the centre said the number of people reporting these crimes has jumped ‘hugely’ in the past two years.
And director Noeline Blackwell revealed they now intend to keep records of how many women and men are attacked after meeting someone via dating sites.
‘This is important because it’s a crime we’re hearing more and more about. People need to be aware of it and they need to protect themselves,’ she said.
‘And the companies who make money from these dating apps also need to do everything they can to ensure that people using their products are safe.’
London Metropolitan police have reported a 700% increase on
‘We don’t have staff to break down sex assaults’
attacks on people who were using dating apps in the past two years.
Despite the growing incidence of this type of crime, gardaí say they have no plans to keep data on the prevalence of these attacks.
A spokesperson added: ‘If someone reports a crime to us we’ll investigate it. But we don’t have the manpower to break down types of sexual assaults.
‘All I can says is this type of crime didn’t exist ten or 15 years ago.’
This week, a father-of-two pleaded guilty at Dublin Central Criminal Court to raping one woman and sexually assaulting another he met on dating site Tinder.
The court heard Patrick Nevin carried out the three attacks in the space of 11 days in July 2014.
In each case, Nevin, a computer programmer and former UCD student, picked the women up in his car on a date and attacked them after driving to a secluded spot. Nevin admitted raping a woman at Bellewstown, Co. Meath, on July 12, 2014, and sexually assaulting a second woman in Co. Meath on July 16, 2014.
He was convicted by a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court last December of sexually assaulting a third woman — a Brazilian student — after driving her to the UCD campus on July 23, 2014.
In evidence, the woman, now aged 35, said she had just arrived in Ireland and wanted to meet Irish people to practise her English.
After a few weeks chatting with Nevin on Tinder and Whatsapp, she arranged to meet him.
He told her he would take her to a place that had the ‘best coffee in Dublin’ but 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, like ‘a monster’. She told the court he attacked her and she was in fear of her life and thought he was going to rape her. He will be sentenced next month.
Another man was jailed for five years in March for a sexual assault on a woman he also met on Tinder.
Former stripper Paul Flaherty, 30, was found guilty of assaulting a female civil servant at his home on Kiltipper Avenue, Tallaght, Dublin, in August 2015 while his parents were in the bedroom next door.
And a woman who was stabbed in the neck and head with a broken bottle in Dún Laoghaire last Christmas also met her attacker through social media.
The National 24 hour helpline for victims of sexual assault is at 1800 778888. news@mailonsunday.ie