A man who raped, stabbed and beat a stranger after climbing in her bedroom window as she slept had been released from prison just 10 days before the incident.
Edmund O’Sullivan (32) was jailed on Tuesday for 15 years with a post release supervision order of eight years after Mr Justice Paul McDermott said “the overall supervision of this man must be closely monitored.”
O’Sullivan had been released 10 days earlier from a three-year sentence with the final six months suspended for the stabbing of another woman in her apartment in 2022. He has 108 previous convictions, four of which are for assaults on women.
Mr Justice McDermott noted partly suspended sentences previously failed to ensure any change in O’Sullivan’s behaviour and said it was of vital importance he is not left at large and unsupervised in society which could lead to exposing “some future victim to a similar occurrence”.
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He said it was hugely important “these matters are addressed by those who have his custody to offer some measure of protection against further violence, particularly against women.”
O’Sullivan of no fixed abode, and originally from Cork pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to rape, anal rape and making threats to kill or cause serious harm to a woman at her apartment in Tralee, Co Kerry on March 14th, 2024.
He was sleeping rough in Tralee at the time.
In her victim impact statement the young woman, who was described in court as exceptionally traumatised, outlined how she continues to fight to rebuild her life but part of her has been irrevocably changed.
“I did nothing to deserve this, but I was left bloodied, broken and violated,” she told the court.
She said she does not believe for one minute that O’Sullivan regrets his actions and is only sorry he was caught. She said she cannot stress enough that O’Sullivan is “a danger to society”.
The woman said she prays justice is served not just for herself but for the safety of other women he might seek to harm.
She outlined how she had fought for her life after awaking to find a scissors at her neck and a man shouting at her to have sex. She said the image was burned into her mind and plays over in her head.
The court heard O’Sullivan stabbed her repeatedly to her face, head and arm and the woman also sustained puncture wounds to her hands.
She said the scars she has been left with are a constant reminder of how close she came to dying.
Mr Justice McDermott said O’Sullivan’s history of violence towards women was worrying.
The judge noted from the woman’s victim impact statement she “believed with every fibre in her being that if she had not fought back she would not be here today but she said the cost of surviving has been immense”.
He noted she said everything she had worked so hard to achieve was “stolen from her in an instant”.
“She was sleeping and he attacked her in the most savage and degrading way and attacked her in order to secure her submission. She feared for her life,” Mr Justice McDermott said.
He acknowledged O’Sullivan had pleaded guilty and acknowledged he had saved the woman the trauma of sitting through a trial but added there had been “a very strong case” against him.
He accepted O’Sullivan had written a letter of remorse.
He set a headline sentence of 23 years before imposing a sentence of 16 years. He suspended the final year on strict conditions including that O’Sullivan address both his drug and alcohol addiction while in custody and continue with any treatment deemed appropriate by the Probation Service on his release from prison.
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