The stress Ciara Mangan (30) endured over almost two years while awaiting a decision on her rapist’s appeal against his sentence was so severe she faced multiple doctor visits and investigations into her inability to hold down food.
Mangan was subjected to a “predatory, violent rape” by a work colleague named Shane Noonan at a party almost 12 years ago.
Noonan (30) pleaded guilty shortly before his trial was due to start and was sentenced to eight years with the final year suspended in July 2023.
On Monday the Court of Appeal ruled that the sentence was appropriate.
“I was in pain, vomiting. I lost weight. I had scopes put down my throat,” Mangan told The Irish Times of the health issues she experienced during the 22-month wait between Noonan’s sentencing and the appeal ruling last week.
She was attending her doctor for months trying to figure out what was wrong, getting tests, thinking she had irritable bowel syndrome or Crohn’s disease.
“Eventually months into it, one doctor asked: ‘Is there anything stressful going on in your life right now?’ And I said: ‘Not necessarily. I mean I do have this thing at the back of my mind all the time. I have this rape case ongoing.’
“She just smiled and laughed at me, almost in disbelief, that I was so blase.
“It was the stress and anxiety that my justice was not secure – that he might be out in two years, a year – was causing my gut to seize up.”
Noonan, of Turlough Road in Castlebar, raped Mangan at a house party in the Co Mayo town in May 2013 when they were both 18.
The sentencing judge described the attack as the “cold, predatory and premeditated” rape by her work colleague as she drifted in and out of consciousness on a bathroom floor.
[ Jennifer O’Connell: Is rape culture real? Ask Ciara ManganOpens in new window ]
Mangan said that the long delay until the appeal ruling was “too long” given that no new evidence was being considered by the court.
“I almost don’t even blame him for appealing. It’s the system. The appeal was available to him and he played it. It’s the system that enables this.”
She believes “six weeks” would be an “acceptable” time in which to process such an appeal.
“I look back at footage of myself outside the criminal courts in July 2023 and think: ‘Oh my God, she has no idea it’s not over.‘”
When a perpetrator is jailed, she says, the survivor has some “peace” their attacker is behind bars.
“The system took away two years of my peace. For two years I was so worried about whether he was going to get out early. They could have dropped two years, three. I didn’t know if I had to worry about him coming out next year.”
Recalling the prolonged trauma of waiting for the Court of Appeal’s decision, she says: “You have work, you have normal-people problems, you have to get on with life. But your body tells the story.
“Your body keeps the score, because what you are going through is not normal, it’s not right.”
She says that a 22-month appeal process “does not acknowledge the impact on the victim.
“The system couldn’t be any further from trauma-informed or even victim-centred. We still have so far to go,” she says.
She feels “really free” now, though is anticipating August 2028, Noonan’s expected release date.
“Will he come back to Castlebar? I really hope not. I am finally back there, home, now. I had to move away when he was out because he was so intimidating. I was afraid to go up the town, to go to Tesco,” she says.
She has founded Beyond Surviving, a survivor-led charity to support survivors of domestic abuse and sexual violence who have progressed beyond the initial trauma.
“We are essentially the bridge after rape crisis services ... to support survivors with reclaiming their lives, meeting other survivors and coming together with empowerment and building up yourself and your agency again,” she says.
* For support, contact the Rape Crisis helpline at 1800 77 8888 or www.beyondsurviving.ie/
