Rapist jailed for breach of suspended sentence

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

A man was ordered to serve 18 months after Justice Paul McDermott revoked part of his suspended sentence at the Central Criminal Court on 29 July 2019. The final 18 months remained suspended on his own bond to keep the peace.

The man, who cannot be named to protect the victim’s anonymity, pleaded guilty to rape. The proceedings were reported on 29 July 2019.

The rape took place at his ex-partner’s Cork home in the early hours of 9 August 2013. The report said he broke into the home, repeatedly raped her during a five-hour ordeal and threatened to kill her. He had initially denied the attack.

In October 2013, Justice Garrett Sheehan imposed a ten-year sentence, suspending the last three years on condition that the man be of good behaviour for ten years. He also required him to engage with the Better Lives sex offender treatment programme in custody. The man was released in January 2019 after serving the non-suspended portion.

The DPP sought revocation because the man had not participated fully in the programme. Senior probation officer Joseph McCarthy said the clinical team considered the conditions unmet and that the man had engaged initially but had not progressed sufficiently with offence disclosure work.

At an earlier hearing, Dara Hayes BL, for the DPP, said it was not the State’s case that the man posed a public safety threat. Justice McDermott said he did not think the limited engagement was a wilful refusal and suspected an inability to engage with the next stage.

The judge later found the conditions had been breached. He acknowledged that the man had lived in the community without coming to adverse attention and said the court’s response had to be proportionate.