Jockey jailed for sex assault on student

An apprentice jockey has been sentenced to four years imprisonment for “a nightmare scenario” endured by a student whom he sexually assaulted and falsely imprisoned after meeting her outside a nightclub in Tralee, Co Kerry.

Maurice Fitzgerald, aged 23, of Abbeyview, Buttevant, Co Cork, followed the student, bringing with him duct tape and scissors, after she rejected his sexual advances at his flat where he had lured her.

On his arrest, he made what Judge Thomas E O’Donnell yesterday said were “startling admissions” with “sinister undertones”. He had told gardaí he was angry after the woman she rejected his sexual advances, that he was “into bondage”, and that he could not control his urges.