Courts

Woman raped by colleague after night out says ‘sexsomnia’ defence ‘belittled her’

Dublin man (30) found guilty of raping co-worker in 2018 with jury rejecting sleep disorder defence

When the woman went to bed, she was fully clothed, the court heard. Photograph: Tom Honan/The Irish Times

David O'Sullivan
Mon Jan 15 2024 - 17:34

A woman who was raped by a co-worker after a night out has described in her victim impact statement as “belittling” that the man said he did it in his sleep.

The 30-year-old Dublin man, who cannot be named to protect the anonymity of his victim, was convicted following a Central Criminal Court trial of one count of rape on February 9th, 2018.

During the trial, defence said the man suffered from a sleep disorder called sexsomnia where people engage in sexual behaviour while asleep.

An investigating garda told Senior Counsel Lorcan Staines, prosecuting, on Monday that the man and woman had been working together at the time of the rape.

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The two had been socialising as part of a group on February 8th, 2018. At the end of the night, the man invited the group back to his Dublin apartment to continue the party.

They arrived at the apartment at about 5.30am on the morning of February 9th. The woman tried to go to sleep in the livingroom. The man asked her to get into bed with him and she refused.

The court was told that it was cold in the livingroom, so the woman went into the man’s bedroom to sleep on the bed. She was fully clothed when she lay down.

She later woke up to the man having sex with her. “What are you doing and how many times have you done that?” she asked him, to which he responded “You wanted me.”

The woman left the flat and called a taxi. She made a complaint to the gardaí on February 15th and the man was arrested on June 30th of that year.

He answered questions put to him by gardaí but said nothing had happened between the two of them and that he could only recalled going to bed.

DNA tests found his semen on the woman’s underwear and tights.

The court heard the man had made sexual comments to her before the night of the assault including: “That top leaves nothing to the imagination” and “those lips could give a good blowjob”.

In a victim impact statement read to the court the woman said the attack “has made me feel less, it has made me feel weak”.

“When you’ve been violated in that way, it feels like somebody has taken a piece of you,” she told the court.

“You feel like something disgusting has been inside you and there’s nothing you can do to make yourself feel clean.”

“Do you know how belittling it is for someone to rape you and then try to shrug it off by saying they did it in their sleep?” she said. “I needed to do this for me. I needed to make sure that he wasn’t able to take all that he has from me without losing anything himself.”

Senior Counsel Kathleen Leader, defending, said her client doesn’t accept the verdict but “expresses his genuine and sincere remorse” towards the woman and acknowledges that she “shouldn’t have been subjected to what happened on the night in question.”

She said her client has a good work history and “is somebody that is capable of a very generous and a very kind attitude towards people in his life” and said there was material supporting that the man was “somebody who is generous towards others, who is caring and who is kind”.

Ms Leader said the man has “shown himself to be someone who can conduct himself in a very pro social way” and asked the court to take into account that the rape was of a short duration and left the woman without physical injuries. A number of testimonials were handed into court on his behalf.

Mr Justice Kerida Naidoo adjourned the case until January 25th for finalisation.

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