Polish man jailed for eight years in Mayo rape case

A Polish man who raped a Mayo woman has been jailed for eight years by Mr Justice Paul Carney at the Central Criminal Court.

Woychiech Kasprzak (aged 25) with an address at The Orchards, Dock Road, Limerick pleaded guilty to orally raping the woman and assaulting her causing her harm in Castlebar, County Mayo on July 13, 2007.

Kasprzak was working in Castlebar with is employer on a floor-laying contract at the time.

Mr Justice Carney directed the registration of Kasprzak as a sex offender and said he measured 'the outrage' as meriting 12 years on the scale of sentencing but taking all the matters into consideration he jailed Kasprzak for eight years on the rape charge and five years to run concurrently on the assault charge.

Detective Sergeant James Carroll told prosecuting counsel, Mr Anthony Sammon SC (with Mr Michael Bowman BL) that the woman had seen a man urinating in the bushes while she walked through the church car park in the town at about 4.30 am before she was attacked from behind and dragged.

Kasprzak told her not to shout while he pushed her to the ground and began to unbuckle her trousers. She feared he was going to rape her and pleaded with him not to while he opened his own trousers.

Detective Sergeant Carroll said Kasprzak forced her to perform oral sex on him and also fondled her breasts. He asked her if she had a condom and got her to masturbate him. He ejaculated on to the ground.

Kasprzak then forced her back on the ground and she again feared he would rape her but when she got a chance she jumped up and ran to try and escape.

Detective Sergeant Carroll said that when the victim looked over her shoulder she saw Kasprzak following her but he stopped and she made her way into the town centre and raised the alarm. CCTV security footage showed the first point of contact between Kasprzak and the victim.

Mr Sammon told Mr Justice Carney that the woman didn't want to address the court but asked that Detective Sergeant Carroll should read her victim impact statement in which she recounted that she suffers from flashbacks, depression and exhaustion from being unable to sleep at night as a result of what happened.

The woman said she was now "terrified of men and especially Polish men". She said she didn't feel safe around men anymore and the first time she went for counselling she was afraid to enter the room in case she was met by a man there.

She said she now goes to sleep with her eyes open after searching her house to make sure there was no man present and if she heard any noise at all from neighbours, she becomes terrified. She is afraid to go out in the dark even at her home and had lost many of her friends because of the state she was in.

"I tell myself every day that I want to be normal again," she said.

Detective Sergeant Carroll said Kasprzak came from Poznam in Poland to Limerick in 2004 and began working for a firm specialising in floor covering all over the country. He had never come to garda attention before and his mother was in court for the hearing which was relayed to her through an interpreter.

Mr Sammon told Mr Justice Carney that the Director of Public Prosecutions considered the case to be at the upper end of the scale for sentencing.

Detective Sergeant Carroll agreed with defence counsel, Mr Patrick McCarthy SC, that Kasprzak had consumed a lot of alcohol with his boss that night after they had finished a contract in the town and little recollection of what he done. He showed great remorse for his actions.

"I regret what I have done and know I will have to pay for it with punishment. I feel very sorry for the girl."

Mr McCarthy submitted that the reports on Kasprzak showed he was a model prisoner, a good student and a hard worker who was partaking in all the educational courses open to him so that he could amend his ways.

Kasprzak had written a letter to his victim from prison but his solicitor didn't think it would be appropriate to send it directly to her before the case ended.

He planned to return to Poland immediately he was released from the prison sentence he knew he had to get and Mr McCarthy asked the court to show as much leniency as it could to him.