 |
||
 |
GREAT GIFTS
PROPERTY JOBS
CARS
DATING |
|
 |
||
 |
||
 |
||
|
|||||||||||||||
|
 Tallaght father jailed for attempted rape 3/16/2010 - 11:49:46 AM A young Tallaght father who head-butted a woman when she resisted his attempts to rape her has been jailed for four and a half years. The now 24-year-old woman told gardaí she awoke on the bathroom floor after a house party to find Stephen Mooney (aged 21) trying to prise open her legs and remove her underwear. She said she couldn’t recall anything after the head-butt but one of the house occupants later described seeing the bloodied victim backing into a bedroom and screaming hysterically for Mooney to leave her alone. The house occupant told gardaí that Mooney, a father-of-two of Maplewood Park, Tallaght, became aggressive before he left because he couldn’t find his wallet. The young victim was put to bed but attended hospital the following day with cuts and bruising. Mooney, who was on bail for an assault offence at the time, pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to attempted rape in the early hours of November 29, 2008. He has previous convictions for road traffic offences, criminal damage, assault and attempted robbery. The woman said in her victim impact statement that she has since dyed her hair to prevent Mooney recognising her if they every met again. She said in the statement, read out by prosecution counsel Ms Deirdre Murphy SC, that she used to be “chatty and easygoing” but suffered nightmares, insomnia and depression after the attack and was terrified Mooney would track her down and hurt her until she learned he was in jail. She added that she hasn’t worked since. Garda Lisa Prendergast said other witnesses at the party had noticed Mooney’s behaviour and interest in his victim over the course of the night. The victim fell asleep on a living room chair after everyone, except her attacker, left for home. The next thing she recalled is lying on the bathroom floor with Mooney trying to prise her legs open. Gda Prendergast agreed with Mr Paul McDermott SC, defending, that his client’s father had a drug problem which led to a disruptive home environment. The garda agreed that Mooney started drinking heavily and abusing drugs from an early age and that all his past offending behaviour had been alcohol related. Mr McDermott submitted to Mr Justice Paul Carney that his client had remorse and regret for his “appalling behaviour” and wished to extend his apologies to the victim. Mr McDermott asked the judge to consider his client’s young age at the time of the offence and his early guilty plea. Mr Justice Carney declared the man a sex offender, backdated his sentence to when he entered custody in December last year and ordered that he undergo three years' post release supervision. |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
