Victim: Rape in van will haunt me

The woman who was raped in a remote part of Cork in the back of a van feels the crime will always haunt her and that she will be marked by it forever.

She says she felt like screaming during last November’s trial when the defence suggested it was consensual sex, even though she was bruised on her arms, legs and torso and her clothes were extensively ripped and torn.

A victim impact statement from the 34-year-old woman was read to Mr Justice Paul Carney at the sentencing hearing for two young men convicted by a jury for their parts in the sex attack.

Mr Justice Carney will impose sentence on the men tomorrow afternoon.

One of them was convicted by a jury of oral rape, attempted rape and sexual assault, the other was convicted of attempted rape and sexual assault.

The two men picked up the victim in a white van with a mattress in the back and sexually attacked the woman after parking the van in a remote part of Glanmire. Detective Sergeant Eoin Buckley said they had been driving the van around and asking other women if they wanted to get into it.

The woman who cannot be named said: “It seems I am to be marked by it forever... In court it was scary to know they [the defendants] were so close to me, never mind in the same building.”

The injured party felt it was unfair the evidence was in the newspapers as she had been trying to shield her parents from the full details of the sexual crimes committed against her.

In relation to the defence in the case she said: “I felt like I was in the dock with my integrity being questioned. They were trying to make out it was consensual. It was so insulting to suggest I would have consensual sex with random strangers. I wanted to scream, ‘How could it be consensual with the bruises and ripped clothes?’ Some of the comments about me make it feel like I was being attacked again.”

When one of the accused was convicted there was a riot in the public gallery last November and the victim felt at first that they were shouting at her and she wondered why it went on so long.

Mr Justice Carney answered that by saying a full-blown riot broke out in his court after one of the accused was found guilty and it was so intense that his directions to the gardaí to arrest the people responsible could not be heard.

Prosecution senior counsel Paddy McCarthy said the injured party was 31 and the defendants were aged 18 and 16 at the time of the crime in the early hours of Sep 13, 2009.

Having gone on a mystery bus tour to a pub for a birthday party, she became separated from her friends and ended up in the back of the van in circumstances that were disputed during the trial. She denied hitching a lift.

The men had stolen €190 from her purse and divided it up among themselves before stealing her car, and she was left in a dishevelled state with extensive bruising, her bra and panties having been ripped off, and her blouse and trousers torn.

Blaise O’Carroll, senior counsel for the older defendant, said his family had been devastated and heartbroken since the verdict.

Tim O’Leary, senior counsel for the co-accused, said his client had expressed remorse when questioned by gardaí.