A DUBLIN man who was forgiven by the 75 year old woman he tried to rape was jailed yesterday for five years by the Central Criminal Court.
Mr Justice Carney noted the woman, whom he later described as religious, had asked the court not to jail him and to give him a chance. She had also intimated that if her 28 year old attacker was jailed it would cause her greater trauma.
Mr Justice Carney said while he took her representations into account in favour of the defendant, he could not give them full expression because of his duty to the public.
He had to mark the outrageous nature of the offence in which an elderly religious woman was subjected to oral sex and had her face insulted by the defendant's penis. She was also caused trauma by fear of AIDS. The details of the offence made him feel physically sick, he said.
Mr Justice Carney said a letter he received from the chief prison chaplain, Father Fergal McDonagh, "accurately and succinctly" described the conditions under which sex offenders served their sentences. He was personally aware of these matters from his own visits to prison as a judge.
Father McDonagh noted that sexual offenders were held in isolation as "protected prisoners" in closed institutions and were never sent to open prisons, unlike other categories. Sexual offenders were never given early release or temporary release.
Det Sgt James Costello earlier told Mr Justice Carney the defendant had no previous convictions and had taken part in numerous fundraising events for charity, including one for the Rape Crisis Centre.
The man, who cannot be named to protect the victim's identity, pleaded guilty to attempting to rape the woman at her Dublin home on August 18th, 1995.
Det Sgt Costello told Mr Peter Charleton SC (with Ms Marie Torrens), prosecuting, that at about 3 a.m. the victim woke to hear the defendant banging on her front door demanding to see a woman who no longer lived there.
He forced his way in and despite the woman's screams for help, he subjected her to a sexual ordeal.
During the attack, he also told her he had never done anything like that before but threatened to kill her if she did not comply with his demands.
Defence counsel, Mr Den is Vaughan Buckley SC (with Mr John McCoy), defending, said his client had been "out of his mind on drink" after consuming 16 pints of lager before the attack, but he accepted this was not an excuse.
He came from a very respectable family who were standing by him despite their shock at his actions.