A trainee pilot has been jailed for six years for raping a college student he met on a night out while she was sleeping.
Chris Brady (31) of Cornstown, Ashbourne, Co Meath, was convicted of rape at his home in May 2023 following a trial last month.
Garda Sgt Jessica Hargadon gave evidence the woman and two friends went to Copper Face Jacks nightclub where they encountered Brady and his friend. The woman was introduced to him and thought he was interested in one of her friends.
They decided to continue the night and went to Brady’s home, where he asked to kiss the woman. She said no and that she thought he wanted to be with her friend. He said he wanted to be with her as her friend wasn’t paying him enough attention.
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She later went to sleep in one room, while her friends slept in different rooms. She was woken up by Brady raping her.
She told him to get off or pushed him off. She asked him to let her sleep and turned on her side. He said something like: “You’re scaring me, I feel like I’ve attacked you. I’m sorry.”
She thought she could then hear him masturbating beside her. He tried to have sex with her again momentarily. She told him to leave, which he did.
The woman made a complaint to gardaí two days later and was examined at a sexual assault treatment unit. Brady co-operated with the investigation and made a voluntary prepared statement in August 2024.
He claimed the woman flirted with him and he woke up to find her kissing him. He said they engaged in consensual sex which the woman stopped as she had a romantic interest in someone else.
Reading her victim impact statement, the woman said Brady “used my story as your own” in his statement to gardaí.
“The evil it takes to do that is incredible,” she said. “You didn’t put together a simple story. You knew what happened and still you decided to sit down and write what sounded to me like a sick fantasy.”
The woman said she chose to come to court alone to spare her family from her cross-examination. In contrast, Brady had “family outside those doors waiting”. She said the difference was because she “was carrying a different story”.
“Yours came with no shame at all,” she said. “Mine came wrapped in shame and that changes what you can ask someone to sit through.”
Testimonials from Brady’s father, siblings, a family friend and a coach from Ashbourne GAA club were handed to the court.
Sean Guerin, defending, noted the testimonials referred to Brady as hard-working, trustworthy and supportive of others, as well as someone involved in charity fundraising and sport.
Guerin said his client trained as a pilot but was unable to work as he could not secure garda clearance. Brady then qualified and worked as a flight instructor, until the same vetting issue emerged.
He submitted the conviction’s consequences will be “career-long” for Brady and said this was an “unusual and significant” mitigating factor.
He said his instructions were that Brady will not appeal the conviction. “In that sense, he accepts verdict of the jury,” he said. “He fought the case on basis of an account he gave and that’s as far as I can put the matter.”
Imposing sentence, Greally said the court considered the sexual violation of a sleeping person to be “intrinsically at a higher level”.
She noted the will of a sleeping person is “so totally and completely overborne that they have no power to resist or refuse” and that the person violated can never know the full extent of what happened. She also said there was evidence of “gaslighting” by Brady.
She set a headline sentence of eight years, which she reduced to six years to take account of the mitigation.
