A MAYO man who was described in evidence as a ‘Satan worshipper’ has been convicted by a Central Criminal Court jury of kidnapping a teenage girl and raping her in his bedroom three years ago.
The jury found the 20-year-old man guilty by and eleven-one majority of raping the victim and by a ten-two majority of falsely detaining her on May 3, 2004 in a Mayo town.
The jury also convicted him unanimously of assaulting the now 19-year-old victim causing harm on the same occasion.
He had pleaded not guilty to all the charges during his five-day trial and told gardaí they had consensual sex at her suggestion.
Mr Justice Charleton declared him a sex offender pursuant to statute and remanded him in custody for sentence in October. He also directed the preparation of victim impact, probation and psychiatric reports and exempted the five men and seven women on the jury from further service for seven years.
The then 16-year-old school girl said her ten-hour ordeal began after she returned to the rapist’s home following a spell at a disco, believing his girlfriend would be present.
A group of young people had been drinking there before they went to the disco but she found herself alone and he refused to let her go home until he had sex with her. She described in detail in evidence over two days how he threatened her with a knife and knuckle-duster, head-butted her, thumped her and finally raped her. The victim said that following the disco the accused rang her a number of times asking her to return to the caravan and wanting to know who she was with. Her companions had intended to go back to the caravan but changed their minds and she was dropped off in a car at his home at around 1am.
She entered the caravan and realised his girlfriend was not there. He offered her a can of beer but when she said she had to go home, he took out a knife and said: “You’re not going anywhere until we do it.”
His behaviour became ‘aggressive and strange’ and when she kept telling him she wanted to go home he repeatedly told her they were going to ‘do it’ first.
She said she told him that would be rape and he replied that he didn’t care. She claimed that at one point he put the knife to her throat and hit her in the arm with a knuckle-duster.
She said he pulled out a bed, pushed her on to it and tried to remove her clothes. She pushed him away. She said he later head-butted her but she tried to remain calm and get him to realise what he was doing.
She said it became light outside and he wanted to go to the shop so he told her not to run or make a scene or he would stab her. The shop was closed so he took her back to his house and into his bedroom.
She said he told her he was ‘a Satan worshipper’ and he had writing on his ceiling which he said was the ‘devil’s bible’. He locked her in the room, held a pillow over her face and, threatened and assaulted her with a knife and ‘knuckle-duster’ while again telling her he wouldn’t allow her to go home until they ‘did it’.
He quenched a cigarette on top of her upper lip and took her mobile phone after switching if off.
She said that on a second visit to the shop, she tried to make eye contact with one of the women behind the counter but her efforts to draw attention to her situation proved useless. She went to the back of the shop and he followed her. She said loudly she wanted to go home and he replied he would walk her there.
He brought her back to the house and again locked the room. She tried to draw other family members’ attention to her presence in the house by making as much noise as possible when she went to the bathroom, but was unsuccessful.
When she tried to run down the stairs he followed her with the knife and told her she could go home but she would have to get her stuff out of the room first.
He then brought her back into the room and again locked the door. She said she was feeling very weak at this stage ‘having put a fight for about ten hours’. Her head was dizzy and her nose was bleeding.
She saw him put on a condom and she was saying ‘no, no, no’, but he replied that he could ‘put one on or I don’t have to use one at all’. She was crying and asking herself why this was happening to her. He then raped her.
He threw her mobile phone on the bed and said she could leave but checked that nobody would see her in the house. She got out of the house at 11am and he threatened her that if he told anyone about what happened he would come after her and kill her as well as her little brother.
When she was in her friend’s house about 20 minutes later she revealed what had happened. She then told her mother she had been raped and the Gardaí were called
