Sleeping teen was sexually assaulted

prosecutor Paul Murray told Wicklow Circuit Court last Friday.

The videos were of 38 seconds, three minutes and 24 seconds, and 22 seconds respectively. One of the videos was sent to the phone of the defendant by Whatsapp.

Gardai said that while it was probable, they could not say definitively that the man involved in the crash had taken the footage on his mobile phone himself.

The three videos show the defendant performing a variety of sexual acts on the woman.

In the second clip, he makes reference to ‘going in for the kill’ and, at one point when the victim stirs, he tells her to relax and go to sleep, saying ‘I’ll look after you’. He says three times: ‘I will ruin her’.

The woman told gardai that she did not know what had gone on and that she would not have let him touch her or video her.

In a victim impact statement, she said that the man had done an ‘evil and disgusting’ thing to her.

‘I hate being made a victim by this man,’ she said. ‘I am a strong person.’

When approached by gardaí, the man said the woman had been attracted to him. However, when they showed him the footage, he became non-cooperative in the interview.

A barrister for the defendant said that her client offered a full, sincere and abject apology. She said that he had difficulty understanding what he had done. She produced a file outlining 20 psychotherapy sessions, as well as references from a number of people, including his girlfriend who was standing by him. The court heard that the defendant had a difficult relationship with his mother. However, his father and sister were with him in court and he had their support.

Judge Michael O’Shea said that the woman was perfectly entitled to be out socialising.

‘She was perfectly entitled to fall asleep and believe she would be safe,’ he said.

Judge O’Shea said the defendant had exploited the situation to the maximum and that the victim ‘couldn’t put up any fight or objection.’

‘He was in a position to take maximum unfair and shocking advantage of her. She was at his complete mercy,’ said the judge.

He said that the man’s demeanour demonstrated utter disrespect for the woman. ‘It appears that it would never have come to light if the accident had not happened and the phone not found,’ he said.

Judge O’Shea called the assaults ‘disgusting, disgraceful, vile, revolting, shocking, horrific and degrading.’

He said that the mitigating circumstances, which he was obliged to take into consideration, included his guilty plea, the remorse expressed, and that he was at the lower end of risk to re-offend.

The man was sentenced to three fiveyear sentences, running concurrently, and with the final two-and-a-half years of each suspended.