Suspended sentence for sexual assault on elderly woman

A Dublin man who got into bed on top of an elderly widow and tried to pull up her night dress after dropping her home from a local party has received a three year suspended sentence.

The man (aged 50) went voluntarily to his local garda station after the incident, said he couldn’t remember what happened but couldn’t refute the elderly lady’s words and revealed he had tried to commit suicide out of shame and remorse for his behaviour.

He pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to sexually assaulting the woman at her home in the city on August 7, 2009. He has no previous convictions.

Judge Patrick McCartan said while he didn’t accept the man had no memory of the attack, he was satisfied he had learnt a “very salutary lesson”, that the incident had been an isolated one and that he didn’t think the man would re-offend.

He imposed the suspended sentence on condition the man remains alcohol free and does not approach his victim.

Garda Tara Corrigan told Ms Lisa Dempsey BL, prosecuting, that the man and a female friend had walked the victim from a local birthday party to her home in the early hours of the morning.

The woman, in her 70s, got into bed after the two friends left but answered a knock at her front door a short time later to find the man had returned.

Gda Corrigan said the man told the woman he was very worried about her and wanted to see her into bed.

The woman agreed, thinking he was concerned for her safety, and let him follow her as she took the chair lift upstairs to her room.

The elderly woman later told gardaí that the man got into bed on top of her and tried several times to pull her night dress up, but that each time she would prevent him and tell him to go back to his wife.

She said he stopped and left her room when he got a phone call from his wife.

Gda Corrigan said the woman told her relatives and gardaí what happened the next day after lying awake all night in shock and stated that her assailant had not used force, threats or exposed his private parts.

Gda Corrigan told Ms Dempsey that the man called into a garda station a few days after the incident, revealed that he’d had three bottles of wine that night and couldn’t recall the incident.

He said: “I’m not denying it, because I’m not in a position to deny it” and “I don’t think a woman of (the victim’s) age would make something like that up.”

He apologised and said he would never wish to hurt the elderly widow.

Gda Corrigan agreed with Mr James Dwyer BL, defending, that his client had entered an early guilty plea, had no previous convictions, presented himself to gardaí with no invitation or request and had since gone for alcohol treatment.

The man’s wife told Mr Dwyer that he had not touched a drink in 15 months and had promised her he would never do so again.

She said she was supporting her husband because she loved him and revealed she had always tried to hide his alcohol problem.