Man convicted of double rape of 75-year-old

A 20-year-old Tipperary man was yesterday convicted of the rape of a 75-year-old widow two years ago.

The rape was described as an “appalling outrage” by Mr Justice Paul Carney.

At the Central Criminal Court, sitting in Limerick, a jury bought in guilty verdicts on double rape charges against Joseph Cummins, who has 60 previous convictions.

Cummins, with an address at St Joseph’s Park, Nenagh, had denied the double rape of the woman on May 22, 2005. Cummins, whose victim is just five feet in height and weighs about eight stone, was out on bail at the time of the rape, the court heard.

The jury of nine men and three women brought in unanimous guilty verdicts on two counts of rape and a further charge of stealing money from her home, after an absence of just an hour and a half.

Cummins showed no emotion as the verdicts were read out.

The victim and members of her family wept and hugged one another.

The widow said on leaving the courtroom: “I am glad it has come to an end. I have done my best.”

On the opening day of the trial in the witness box, she gave a harrowing account of how she was attacked.

The horror attack happened in the house where the woman lived alone having brought up six children there, one of whom died. Her husband died six years ago.

She awoke at 3.20am to take tablets for ulcers in her leg.

On her way to the bathroom she heard noise in the kitchen and went to investigate.

On turning on a light she was confronted by a man who forced her onto an armchair, pulled her nightdress over her head and raped her for more than 10 minutes.

During the attack he subjected his victim to a litany of degrading comments before he turned her over and anally raped her.

Before leaving the house, Cummins told her if she told the guards he would break in her door and she would never walk the streets again.

He took €135 from her purse and said he would leave her €25, remarking she would not need much.

The frail woman recalled how she got violently sick after Cummins left. She sat for hours wondering how she would tell her family what had happened.

When her daughter rang her at around 10am to arrange to pick her up to bring her for lunch, as she did every Sunday, the woman said she could not go.

Asked why, she told her daughter: “I have been raped and robbed.”

Her shocked daughter dropped the phone and rushed to her mother’s home. Gardaí were on the scene within minutes.

Brendan Grehin, SC, for the State said a victim impact statement would be prepared and the victim had no objection to Cummins being named.

Sentencing was adjourned to March 12 next.