10-year sentence for man who raped young Polish woman

A Georgian national who raped a Polish woman on her second night in Ireland has been jailed for 10 years by Mr Justice Barry White at the Central Criminal Court.

Vasile Vardoshilli (aged 37), married with three children, with an address at Greenville Place, Cork was found guilty by a jury last month of raping, falsely imprisoning and assaulting the now 25-year-old woman in Killarney on August 22, 2004.

Vardoshilli was in a distressed state and cried throughout his sentence hearing and his counsel, Mr Anthony Sammon SC (with Mr Michael Bowman BL) said he continued to assert his innocence despite the jury's verdict. Therefore, Mr Sammon said, no plea of mitigation could be put forward on his behalf.

Mr Justice White said it was clear from the victim impact report that the Polish woman was a "most Christian and charitable" person who had expressed a wish that her rapist not be imprisoned for a long period and had indicated that she no longer felt hatred towards him.

The victim, who was not in court for the sentence hearing, had expressed concern in the report for the effect Vardoshilli’s conviction would have on his wife and family.

Detective garda John Evans told the court that the victim was not a vengeful person and had been "very traumatised by the ordeal of the trial".

During the trial the woman said of her attacker: "I was very afraid of him from the moment I met him".

Vardoshilli came to Ireland in 2000 with his wife as an asylum seeker. Det garda Evans said his status had since changed as the couple had had an Irish-born child. He had no previous convictions and worked as a "middle man" in getting jobs for foreign nationals.

Mr Justice White said the offence of rape was second only to murder in gravity and there were no mitigating circumstances in this case as Vardoshilli took advantage of "a young, innocent Polish woman".

He said Vardoshilli always asserted that the incident was consensual but Mr Justice White said this had not been supported by the evidence.

"Hospitality was extended to you in this country and you seem to have taken the view you would abuse our laws which are no doubt no different from those in your own country."

The victim told Ms Aileen Donnelly SC (with Mr Vincent Heneghan BL), prosecuting, she had come to Ireland to work after hearing from a Polish neighbour that a job had been found for her in Cork.

She was met by Vardoshilli and this Polish friend at the Cork bus depot on August 21, 2004 and she spent that night at a mobile home complex rented by Vardoshilli.

The next day Vardoshilli drove her and two other Georgians to Killarney where they met other Polish men who had an apartment in the town. They had something to eat and drink before going to a local disco where Vardoshilli tried to kiss and hug her but she pushed him away and continued dancing.

She left the disco with him and returned to the flat where he ordered her into a bedroom and informed her they were going to sleep together.

He became very aggressive when she said in Polish and English that she didn’t want to sleep with him. He then hit her on the face, grabbed her and threw her on the bed.

"I was shaking and crying and it was clear that I didn’t want to sleep with him," she said. "I was asking him not to kill me." Vardoshilli then stripped off his clothes, pulled her clothes off and raped her.

She said she was still crying but had stopped trying to resist him for fear for her life. "I didn’t want to have sex with him. I was crying and he knew that I didn’t want to have sex," she said.

Afterwards she went to the living room where one of the Georgians told her "it would be better" if she went back to Vardoshilli and she returned to the bedroom in fear.

She was still crying before falling asleep there. Vardoshilli woke soon after and dressed while she pretended to be in a deep sleep.

He left the house and she went to the living room. When he returned to the house he came over to her, touched her cheek with his hand before drawing his finger across her throat. He then went to sleep in another room but she didn’t leave the flat. "I was afraid and had nowhere else to go," she said.

Other Polish witnesses gave evidence that they found her in the flat "shaking and crying and clearly distressed". They took her to the house of a Irish woman and she later went to the gardaí and for a medical examination.

She told the court that she and others "looked up" to Vardoshilli as "someone important in helping to get them work". Her neighbour had told her he was "a person who could organise a job for her".

She said the job she came for was the one her friend had told her about and she thought she would be working for Vardoshilli.

The jury at the trial also heard that when Vardoshilli returned to the flat and found she had left, he became violently angry and demanded that his colleagues help him in an unsuccessful search of Killarney for her.

Mr Justice White heard that the woman was offered money by persons acting on behalf of Vardoshilli to drop the charges. During the trial he falsely claimed she wanted €2,000 cash and a ticket home to Poland to drop them.

Vardoshilli was placed on the register of sex offenders and leave to appeal conviction and severity of sentence was refused.