A man who subjected a female student to more than one hour of horrific sexual and physical assault near her south Dublin home in the early hours of the morning has been jailed for nine years by Mr Justice Paul Carney.
Karl Murray (31), Kilakee Park, Firhouse, Dublin, was detained and held by young men who caught him when he tried to escape after two of them challenged him while he dragged the victim along the road.
Murray, a single man, threatened to kill her by slitting her throat "from ear to ear", strangled her, stripped her naked, bit her all over her body, thumped her breasts and sexually violated her.
He pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to aggravated sexual assault of the victim on July 9th, 2005. Two further counts of false imprisonment and assault causing harm were taken into consideration. Mr Justice Carney certified him as a registered sex offender and ordered that he undergo five years' post-release supervision.
The 21-year-old victim told Mr Justice Carney she believed that Murray's ultimate intention was to kill her. Her view of the world had been "completely transformed" by his violation of her body and she no longer trusted the general public.
"I feel I can't afford to because if anything like this ever happened to me again, I know that I wouldn't survive it. I barely survived it this time and have often felt like taking my own life because I felt I couldn't live in a world where life was this difficult and where someone you do not know or someone you have never offended could behave so viciously and violently towards you for absolutely no reason."
She said that "for no logical reason" Murray bit her all over her body until she bled, strangled and choked her until at one point she lost consciousness.
He punched her, bashed her head off a wall, forcefully stripped her naked, sexually assaulted her, kissed her, and ordered her to repeat things like "I'm not so glamorous any more" as well as describing what he was doing to her.
"At times what he was doing was so excruciatingly painful, I had to tear the grass from the ground to stop myself from lifting my hands and screaming, which I felt would have resulted in my death or serious injury."
The woman, who Mr Justice Carney said spoke "very eloquently", said her pleas and attempts to reason with Murray were refused. One of her most painful memories was of him biting her hand until it bled and "watching in utter disbelief and questioning whether it was feasible that this person was actually human".
"He is the personification of misogyny as he gets thrills from the destruction of females - that is what he mistakenly considers power to be. That night, I was unfortunate enough to be that representation of womanhood and femininity that he so obviously despises." His "degrading merciless" attack on her was not something that you recovered from but was something "you live with or simply choose not to live".
She had chosen to live with the help of counselling, medication and "a loving family, full of strong and powerful women".