A TALLAGHT man who viciously raped, beat and threatened to kill a woman he abducted from a busy road has received an eight-year sentence with one suspended.
Gary Kinsella, a soldier at Cathal Brugha Barracks, changed his plea on day two of his trial to guilty of rape, oral rape and threatening to kill the then 37-year-old woman on August 8th, 2008.
He had earlier pleaded guilty to assault causing harm as the jury was being sworn in at the Central Criminal Court.
Kinsella (27), Allenton Avenue, Tallaght, has five previous convictions for road traffic and public order offences.
The woman had described in evidence how she had passed a stranger while walking home from the gym and realised he was following her further along the route. She did not have time to seek help at a row of houses because he came up quickly behind her, grabbed her hair and dragged her across the street through presbytery gates.
The woman had told Pauline Walley SC, prosecuting, that her attacker beat her about the face, fractured her nose and threatened to kill her as he dragged her screaming to the secluded garden behind the presbytery. She said he hauled her clothes off and dragged her naked to a gap between bushes and the garden fence, where he raped her.
The victim gave further evidence that Kinsella also subjected her to more sex assaults.
She said her attacker got up and leaped over the garden fence when gardaí arrived on the scene with torches and she fled naked towards the presbytery gates, where she saw more officers and patrol cars.
Mr Justice George Birmingham noted that Kinsella’s offences were at the “upper end of the scale” considering the predatory elements of stalking, forced abduction and physical violence accompanied by multiple threats to kill.
Mr Justice Birmingham said Kinsella’s claims of being drunk at the time “offered no excuse”.
In the letter, Kinsella, who had once been voted top recruit in his year, apologised to his victim and said it was “obvious” after listening to her that his actions had turned her life “upside down”.
Mr Justice Birmingham ordered that Kinsella undergo two years of post-release supervision and comply with any drug and alcohol treatment programmes recommended by the probation services.