A young man who threatened his then teenage girlfriend and sexually assaulted and beat her on numerous occasions during their two-year relationship has been jailed for two years.
Martin Tracey (21), of Pearse Street, Kilkenny, Co Kilkenny, pleaded guilty to charges including coercive control, assault causing harm, false imprisonment and sexual assault on dates between October 2020 and January 31st, 2022. He has no previous convictions.
His former partner, Donna Clifford (21), waived her anonymity after sentencing at the Central Criminal Court was completed to allow Tracey to be named.
Ms Justice Melanie Greally commended Ms Clifford on coming forward. She noted coercive control tends to be associated with more mature and longer relationships, but should not be tolerated even among young people.
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The judge told Ms Clifford it took immense bravery to come forward and bring this behaviour to an end.
Garda Cian O’Connor told John Kelly SC, prosecuting, that Ms Clifford contacted the gardaí in January 2022 and said she had been in a relationship with Tracey for two years during which she suffered physical and emotional abuse and a number of assaults.
Audio recordings of some of the messages the then teenage Tracey had sent the woman were played to the court at an earlier hearing.
Ms Justice Greally noted the violence of the language of the messages, and she did not repeat their distressing content during sentencing. She said they were alarming and disturbing in the extreme.
Ms Justice Greally noted Tracey maintained he did not mean what he said, but she also remarked there was nothing in the content of the messages heard by the court that would convey that the words were not seriously intended by him.
The garda confirmed that Ms Clifford was still in school when she started the relationship with Tracey.
He said in one incident she was attacked while they were out, with Tracey pinning her up against a wall and choking her. She was thrown to the ground during this attack.
The other assaults occurred in his family home and included him punching her to the stomach.
He also sexually assaulted her and falsely imprisoned her by refusing to allow her to leave his bedroom.
The garda said Tracey wanted to know where the woman was at all times and insisted that she always have her location turned on in Snapchat. She recorded the messages he sent because she was afraid he would cause her serious harm and she wanted to have a record of the threats.
A victim impact statement was read into the record by Garda O’Connor on behalf of Ms Clifford.
In the statement, Ms Clifford said she had lost interest in school, hobbies and friends as a result of the abusive relationship she was in. She outlined the devastating effects on her mental health.
She said she has been left with severe anxiety and does not feel safe.
She said she does not understand how someone who is supposed to have loved her could be capable of doing this.
“I don’t think I can fully explain the impact this has had on me,” she continued, before she thanked gardaí for helping her feel comfortable and safe to talk about what had been going on when she had been trying to hide it.
Ms Justice Greally on Friday said Ms Clifford’s victim impact statement was a vivid account of the profound harm caused to her by the offending.
In assessing Tracey’s culpability, she said the harm caused to Ms Clifford was emotional and psychological, noting the court did not receive evidence of physical injuries.
She said Tracey was 17 when the offending began and 18 going on 19 when it ended, so the court must have regard to his youth and immaturity.
She placed the coercive control offence in the upper range, noting its highly abusive and damaging nature. She placed the sexual assault and false imprisonment in the lower range for those offences.
Ms Justice Greally set headline sentences totalling four years.
In mitigation, she noted Tracey’s plea of guilty, his lack of prior convictions, his co-operation, and admissions.
She imposed concurrent sentences totalling three years and suspended the final year on strict conditions including probation supervision, and undertaking sex-offender and domestic violence therapeutic programmes.
At a previous hearing, the detective agreed with Colman Cody SC, defending Tracey, that his client was “a person of prior good character”.
Mr Cody said Tracey had suffered from anxiety since childhood and was socially anxious.
He submitted that a letter of apology from Tracey contrasts with the contents of the probation report in terms of his levels of awareness and insight into his offending.
Mr Cody said Tracey’s parents were supportive but did not condone what he has done. He said the man had co-operated with gardaí and the investigation.
