A 25 year old man who laughed in a woman’s face as he pinned her to a bed and raped her and then told her that he was HIV Positive and had Hepatitis C has been jailed for nine years with two years suspended.
Lovemore Dube, who was born in Zimbabwe but has a South African passport and came to Ireland in 2005, pleaded guilty to the rape of the woman in her home in Cork and the theft of house keys on July 23rd 2012.
Today at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork, Mr Justice Paul Carney said that Dube had abused the woman’s hospitality by returning to rape her when she was alone in the house less than an hour after she and her fiancé had invited him in for coffee as it was raining.
Dube had subjected her to a horrifically violent ordeal which led to severe injuries and severe trauma as he had told her that he was HIV Positive and had Hepatitis C and she had to undergo several stressful days before test results came back to show she was clear.
Mr Justice Carney noted the impact that the crime had on the woman in particular the fact that it had happened in her own house where she expected to have "safety and sanctuary" and he also noted her distress when she learned Dube had been found with her house keys.
He said he believed nine years was the appropriate sentence for the rape but he was legally bound to take account of Dube’s guilty plea at the first available opportunity at the Central Criminal Court and he suspended the last two years of the sentence.
He also sentenced Dube to three years for the theft of the house keys to run concurrently with the rape sentence and he backdated both sentences to August 1st 2012 when Dube was taken in custody in relation to the offence.
Earlier this week, the woman in her Victim Impact Statement told she feared that Dube was going to kill her when, after biting her on her breasts, he put his hands on her neck and began to choke her as he raped her in the bedroom of her house.
"I couldn’t breathe as I was being strangled and I thought I was going to die. I didn’t want to die like this and I thought his face would be the last thing I would ever see in this life. I felt I was seconds from death and I couldn’t do anything about it ...
"I thought I would never see my lovely family again and never see the love of my life again. I dreaded my family finding me dead like this and worried about the trauma they would go through - I prayed to God, Our Lady, the angels and my late grandmother to save me."
"His eyes looked evil and they bored into me and he seemed to enjoy my suffering as he kept laughing. I felt humiliated powerless and his smell repulsed me," said the woman who told how Dube slapped her and called her "a bitch" and "a slut" during the rape.
She told how she managed to get enough breath to ask him how he would feel if somebody did that to his mother or sister and she managed to distract him and get him off and push him out of the house and lock him out.
"My relief was short lived as he then started screaming outside the house that he was going to smash in the front window and finish me off like he should have ... I was again terrified for my life and felt all alone and helpless.
"Everytime I read or hear about a woman who has been raped and murdered. I know the terror they have gone through and I relieve the vicious rape again. I used to be a happy, carefree, trusting person before the rape. I don’t know if I will ever be that person again."
