A man has been jailed for sexual assault of a teenager he met in a nightclub after he accepted he was reckless as to whether she had consented to sexual activity.
The then 18-year-old woman told gardaí in February 2018 that she doesn’t remember anything between being in the nightclub and later finding herself in a car with a man, her top down and her underwear missing.
Gheorghe Morar (36) of The Oaks, Ashtown, Dublin told gardaí that he and the woman were “playing” with each other and he thought she was enjoying it.
He said that he thought the woman was aware of what was happening but accepted that it was “a possibility” that she wasn’t, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard.
Giving evidence Detective Garda Gillian Ryan said that Morar told gardaí that he believed the woman wanted to have intercourse with him.
“She seemed to want that but I wasn’t too sure if she knew what she was doing. It looked like she had maybe taken drugs or too much alcohol,” he told gardaí.
He said as a result he didn’t have full penetrative sex with the woman, saying “I didn’t want to abuse her, I felt I shouldn’t take advantage of her, it wouldn’t be my style,” Dt Ryan told prosecution counsel Pieter Le Vert BL.
Morar told gardaí that he didn’t think he was more sober than the woman and that he was aware of what he was doing. Asked if he thought that “she wasn’t aware” he replied “it’s a possibility” but said he thought she was.
The court heard that Morar met the woman in a club and they were kissing there before they left together. Morar drove them both to Dollymount strand in the early hours of February 7th, 2018.
The complainant later told gardaí she became upset when she found herself in a car in an undressed state. She said she started crying and Morar drove her back to her hotel.
Morar told gardaí that he and the woman were touching each other and kissing and at around 7am, he drove her back to her hotel in the city centre. She went to her room and later came down and asked staff at the hotel to call gardaí.
Morar was charged with sexual assault and initially denied the offence. A trial was set for last September when his lawyers told the court he was pleading guilty to the charge on the basis of recklessness.
He has one previous conviction for a minor public order matter in Spain.
Remorse
Aidan Doyle SC, defending, told the court that there was no evidence the woman had her drink spiked or was drugged. He said Morar was living in Ireland for around five years and has a good work record as a painter and decorator.
Asked what the State’s case is in terms of what activity constituted the sexual assault, Mr Le Vert told Judge Martin Nolan that it was the sexual acts admitted by Morar to have taken place in the car on the beach.
Mr Doyle told the court that “up to a point” what happened between his client and the complainant was consensual but that “unfortunately he continued at a time when he ought not to have”.
“He accepts that now,” counsel said, pointing out that his client had not hidden away but had contacted the woman the next day, and gone to her hotel and to a garda station to retrieve his driver’s licence which he had given the woman.
Sentencing him on Monday afternoon, Judge Nolan said that both persons had taken a “considerable amount of drink” and were “getting on well” in the nightclub before he drove them both to the beach.
“At that point the complainant was so drunk she couldn’t give free or full consent,” he said.
He said that at the time Morar “didn’t believe he was committing a crime” but “on reflection he considered his position” and pleaded guilty.
He said the offending was not minor and set a headline sentence of around five years. He noted the mitigation factors of Morar’s “sincere remorse”, the absence of any relevant previous offending, and the unlikelihood that he will re-offend.
He reduced the headline sentence to two years which he ordered backdated to May 15th, 2020 when Moran went into custody after his extradition from Romania.