JUDGE: THREATS TO KILL SPANISH STUDENT WERE BLOOD-CURDLING
EOIN Berkeley’s threats to kill the 18-year-old Spanish student he had abducted and repeatedly raped were ‘blood-curdling’, a judge said as he sentenced him to 14 years behind bars yesterday.
The 25 year old, of Hampton Wood Way, Finglas, Dublin 11, admitted raping the girl at the Irish Glass Bottle Company site, Pigeon House Road, on three occasions between July 15 and 16, 2017.
Judge Michael White told the Central Criminal Court that the crimes were premeditated and the nature of the rapes were particularly degrading. He noted there were 19 separate incidents of violence or threats of violence during the ordeal.
Berkeley smiled during the hearing and stretched and appeared to chuckle when the sentence was handed down.
The court heard evidence that he was mainly sleeping rough at the time and frequently came to Garda attention for public order situations which raised concerns for his mental health.
On the date of the abduction, the victim was out in the city centre on a
He repeatedly tried to strangle her
Saturday afternoon when she met Berkeley, who told her he lived on the beach and invited her to see where he lived.
The then 18-year-old, described as ‘naive and shy’, had come to Ireland two weeks earlier to improve her English and was staying with a host family in Dublin. She agreed to go with Berkeley – but he brought her to a derelict site at the former Irish Glass Bottle site where he had a number of tents pitched.
Once inside the tent, he pushed her to the ground and grabbed her hands. He tied her hands up behind her back using a dog leash and told her he had killed six people and was going to kill her. He repeatedly tried to strangle her and, at one point, picked up a small saw and told her that if she didn’t stop struggling he would cut her hands off.
She begged him to kill her in the least painful way possible and he gave her some tablets and he then put some black gloves on. She took the tablets and fell down and he began abusing her. Over the hours that followed, Berkeley raped the woman on three separate occasions.
He told her that if she tried to run away he would hit her on the head with a rock. The victim escaped when Berkeley took her down to the beach and he fell asleep.
On escaping, the victim rang her father, and her father told the court this was the ‘worst phone call’ a father could ever get.
The court heard that medical tests found morphine, codeine and cannabis present in her body after the attack. Berkeley’s 25 previous convictions include unlawful possession of knives and a realistic firearm, and threatening and abusive behaviour.
After the hearing last week, Mr Justice White adjourned sentencing to yesterday. He said that the victim was violated in a horrendous way and that there was a collective sense of shame that somebody visiting Ireland had suffered in such a vile way.
He said the victim came from a protected family from a generally crimefree area in Spain where she was able to roam freely. The judge said that throughout the attack she showed compassion for others, noting that she didn’t call out for help in case it put strangers in danger.
Judge White imposed concurrent sentences of 14 years for each rape offence and said he was taking into consideration the threats to kill, sexual assaults and false imprisonment.
He backdated the sentence to July 31, 2017 when Berkeley went into custody and imposed a period of three years post-release supervision. He stated he had to take into account Berkeley’s tragic history, and his mental health difficulties, and added that reports handed into court ‘made for grim reading’.