15-year jail term for 'social deviant' who raped aunt

A convicted criminal and "social deviant" who raped his aunt in her Cork home after threatening to kill her has been jailed for 15 years at the Central Criminal Court.

Colm Kelly (aged 32), originally from Davitt Park, Ballybrack but with address at Came Point, Castletownbere, had pleaded not guilty to rape, oral rape, two charges of sexual assault and one of false imprisonment on August 25, 2010.

A jury found him guilty on all counts after two and a half hours of deliberations following his trial earlier this month.

His 55-year-old aunt waived her right to anonymity so her nephew could be named. In her victim impact statement, she asked that Kelly be banned from Co Cork following his release, as she was afraid he would "come back and get me".

Following the sentence hearing she simply commented that justice had been done.

She described her nephew as an "evil monster" who should be "locked up and the key thrown away". She said her life had been a living hell since the ordeal, as she suffers from nightly flashbacks and panic attacks and cannot spend a night in her house on her own.

The mother of two said nobody would ever understand the shame she felt as her family sat in court and listened to what she had gone through.

Mr Justice Paul Carney described the way in which Kelly ran his defence as “the most despicable and dishonourable I have seen in my 20 years in this court”. He said Kelly had claimed that his aunt had been “the sexual predator” and instigated the encounter.

Mr Justice Carney said the jury had decisively rejected that claim and returned “a rapid verdict”.

He said the inherent gravity of the offence, the effect on the victim, the breach of trust, the fact he had used a knife and the conduct of his defence warranted a 15-year sentence.

Mr Justice Carney said he saw nothing significant in favour of the accused to allow any discount on that and ordered that he undergo 10 years post release supervision before he registered Kelly as a sex offender.

The jury had heard that the woman allowed Kelly to sleep in her home on the night in question, as his father's house was full.

She went to bed upstairs, but got up in the early hours of the morning to see Kelly standing at the bottom of the stairs naked. She screamed and he told her to "shut the f**k up" before saying "you know what's going to happen. I'm going to rape you."

She pleaded with him to calm down, but he told her to be quiet or he would kill her. She noticed he had a small kitchen knife in his hand. He grabbed her by the hair and brought her into a downstairs bedroom, and over the course of two hours raped and sexually assaulted her.

Kelly then told her to lie down next to him and pretend they were girlfriend and boyfriend for the night.

He suggested it could be an on-going arrangement between them and he would pay her €1,000 for it, but she replied that it was wrong and it was incest. He said: "I'm a sick little puppy."

After the ordeal, he told her to take a shower, and then made her swear on her granddaughter's life she would not tell gardaí because he could "get ten years for it." He left the house then.

The court heard Kelly has 67 previous convictions, for robbery, burglary, theft, road traffic, assault causing harm, blackmail and extortion, and false imprisonment.

Around three months before the incident, he had been released after serving a four year sentence in the Midlands prison, and at the time of the attack was working as a fisherman around the Cork area.

Mr Tim O'Leary SC, prosecuting, told Mr Justice Carney the DPP regarded the incident as being at the higher end of the scale, given the length of the assault, the fact a knife was used, and the false imprisonment in the woman's own home.

Kelly's defence counsel, Mr Tom Creed SC, said his client had been abusing alcohol and drugs from the age of 12, and was brought up in a dysfunctional home where he was physically abused from the age of 4.

He said however that reports handed into court described Kelly as a "social deviant" and stated he was at high risk of re-offending, unless he underwent continued drug treatment and therapy.