A man has been jailed for 12½ years for raping and smothering his wife while armed with a knife.
The Central Criminal Court heard the victim is now raising her children alone and has become isolated from other members of the Traveller community for bringing the man to court as it was “not the Traveller way” to do so.
She claimed others in her community would have put up with what happened, but she followed through for the sake of her daughters. The truth was now out and that it was the accused rather than her who was the monster, she said.
The 25-year-old defendant, who cannot be identified to protect his wife’s identity, was convicted of raping, sexually assaulting, falsely imprisoning and making threats to kill the woman in Dublin in September 2023.
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He has 35 previous convictions for offences including theft, burglary, robbery and breaching a protection order.
Passing sentence on Monday, Mr Justice Kerida Naidoo said the woman was subjected to two rapes and two serious sexual assaults by her husband in what was effectively the family home. He said it was a “terrifying” experience for her.
The judge noted that the man does not accept the guilty verdicts and has not expressed any remorse.
He set a sentence of 13 years and, noting there was little in the way of mitigation, suspended the final six months on a number of conditions, including that the man engage with the Probation Service.
After the sentence was handed down, the man’s supporters started shouting and exchanging insults with the complainant before they were removed from the court by gardaí.
During the trial, a local garda told Mark Lynam SC, prosecuting, that the couple had a turbulent relationship, with a number of safety and barring orders obtained over the years.
The garda said the accused was in prison for a number of years but the couple rekindled their relationship after his release. They were living separately at the time and she travelled to his home on the day in question.
She went to bed as she was feeling unwell and woke to the man rubbing her leg. She told him she was unwell and went back to sleep. She said the man then got on top of her and put his hand over her nose and mouth, leaving her unable to breathe.
The court heard she fought him off, sustaining injuries in the process, and got out of bed. She went to the window to try to catch her breath, but may have lost consciousness and fell on to the bed.
The woman said she saw the man with a knife and he told her not to talk or shout.
“If the gardaí come I will stab you to death,” he told her, adding that he would face jail either way.
The woman went downstairs, wobbly and weak, while the man told her to clean up the blood, the court heard. She said her face was ashen grey and her lips blue from the smothering.
She saw a knife on the couch in the sittingroom and tried to bide her time, as she was afraid he would kill her if she went upstairs.
She made him swear on their children’s lives that he would not kill her before they went upstairs again. They got into bed and she made it clear she did not want to do anything.
The court heard the accused did not listen and raped her. He then sexually assaulted her before raping her a second time. The woman did not resist but made it clear she did not want to do it.
The woman accused the man of rape but he sought to minimise it. She said she promised she would not report it so she could leave the house. She told him she was going to the social welfare office but went to the garda station and reported what had happened.
The man was later interviewed and denied any sexual assault or rape had taken place, accusing the woman of making it up.
In her victim impact statement, the woman outlined that she came from a strict family and thought her new husband would be decent when they married at a very young age.
However, she said it did not take long for him to show his true colours as he would drink, gamble and scam her out of her social welfare payments when she had children to feed.
She said he came to her full of promises on his release from prison and told her he had done anger management.
However, she said the man made her a prisoner in her own home and tried to kill her in her own bed.
She said she has constantly worried about her safety and suffered flashbacks and nightmares since that night.
Tim O’Leary SC, defending, said the accused does not accept the facts of the case. He submitted his client had no previous convictions of this kind.
