Man who raped male friend gets six-year sentence

A CORK man who raped and sexually assaulted a male friend after taking “head-shop joints” and alcohol at a flat in the city in March 2010 has ben jailed for six years, with the last two years suspended.

Prosecution senior counsel, Marjorie Farrelly, said the victim wanted the accused, Peter Forde, aged 31, of Apartment 3, 144 Lower Glanmire Road, Cork, identified in any coverage of the sentencing. Forde had not been previously identified.

Mr Justice Paul Carney declared Forde a sex offender for the purposes of having his name added to the sex offenders register.

“In so far as there has been reference to alcohol and head-shop joints… alcohol affords not only no defence but no mitigation of one’s responsibility to society,” Mr Justice Carney said at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork.

Mr Justice Carney said that, in the available sentencing scale, from life imprisonment to a fully suspended sentence, he assessed the severity of the rape as meriting a six-year sentence in the absence of any mitigating factors. In Forde’s case, he said, it was appropriate to suspend the last two years of the sentence.

A condition of the suspension of the last two years required the defendant “to stay away from his victim in perpetuity”.

A three-year concurrent sentence was imposed on him for sexual assault.

Det Gda Owen O’Connell had previously told the Central Criminal Court that, on the night of the assault, the victim visited Forde in his flat and they both drank alcohol and smoked what was described as “head-shop joints”.

The victim woke in the early hours of the morning to find Forde removing his underwear before orally and anally raping him. Throughout the attack, the victim repeatedly pleaded with Forde to stop.

The victim remained in the flat until the next morning before going home and reporting the incident to a friend, who brought him to hospital.

Hospital staff called gardaí, who later arrested Forde and brought him in for questioning. Det Gda O’Connell told the court that the man, who repeatedly denied the assault until he was shown DNA evidence, showed little or no remorse or empathy for his victim, and did not seem to grasp the seriousness of the crime.

Cross-examined by Martin Giblin SC for the defence, Det Gda O’Connell agreed that Forde suffered from learning difficulties and could be classed “vulnerable”, but “not to the same extent” as his victim in that regard.

The victim said the attack had caused him to lose trust in people, and he now rarely leaves the house.