‘Predatory’ rapist gets 12 years after drugging women
Kapil Garg, aged 35, had promised the girls “ecstasy” but gave them antidepressant tablets with a sedative effect before raping them.
Garg has convictions in the US including a battery one for an incident in 2004 in which he broke into a sl-eeping woman’s motel room and began touching her.
Garg, from Mumbai, had been renting a room in Whitefriar Place, Dublin 8, at the time of the rapes. He has been in custody since the women reported the incident in Jul 2011.
He pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to raping and sexually assaulting the first woman and denied raping the second woman at his home.
Counsel said Garg admitted giving the girls a drug which he knew had a sedative effect and knew was not ecstasy.
Garda John Paul Holland told Ms Walley both girls had been out with friends and had a considerable amount to drink. After the women left a club at 3am Garg began talking to one of them and said he had “E” at the house.
The women both took half a tablet in the kitchen and afterwards the three went up to his bedroom because he told them he was concerned about noise.
They lay on the bed fully clothed and the first girl said she fell asleep almost immediately. She later went to the bathroom and fell asleep when she returned. When she woke up she saw Garg having sex with her friend. She tried to shake her friend but could not wake her.
The first girl fell back asleep again and the next thing she remembered was lying on her stomach with Garg on top of her with his fingers in her vagina. She said she froze and he put his penis into her vagina three or four times.
Garg was convicted by the jury following a seven-day trial last October.
Mr Justice Barry White said if Garg had admitted his guilt earlier his victims would have been spared giving evidence and hearing his “untruthful testimony” during the trial.
He imposed concurrent sentences totalling 12 years and suspended the final three years. Garg has been registered as a sex offender.
The two women gave victim impact evidence that the offences had changed their lives for ever; impacted on relationships; and left them struggling to concentrate in college and on exams.
The first woman said she would never stop regretting the decision to go back to a stranger’s house. The second said waiting on the results of STD tests had been particularly hard. She said she also found giving evidence in court difficult and feared she would not be believed.
