A MAN has been convicted of ambushing a woman in the public toilets of a Cork town and subjecting her to half an hour of rape and sexual violence.
The 30-year-old woman was running errands in the town and was washing her hands at the sink when she was grabbed from behind by Przemyslaw Jakubowski. He forced her into a cubicle and raped her before fleeing.
He was wearing women’s underwear at the time which were later found in his apartment by gardaí. After his conviction, the jury heard he had a previous conviction for attempted rape in another country and that there will be further details of this when he is sentenced next month.
Jakubowski (36), who is originally from Poland, had arrived in Cork shortly before the attack. He was found guilty by a Central Criminal Court jury following a 12-day trial and three hours of deliberations. He held his head in his hand and muttered to himself as the verdicts were read out.
The jury heard the victim’s DNA was found under his fingernails and on a pink blood-stained slip which he was wearing at the time of the attack.
Jakubowski’s DNA and fingerprints were also found on a beer can which had been left at the crime scene. The woman recounted to gardaí that her attacker had a box of Marie Clare tights held in the waistband of the women’s underwear he was wearing. Jakubowski had earlier been spotted in the town buying the same brand of tights twice. When confronted by investigators he claimed he had bought them as a present for his girlfriend.
Jakubowski, of Egmont Court, Earls Street, Kanturk, Co Cork, had pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to 12 counts including rape, oral rape, anal rape, threats to kill, assault causing harm, sexual assault and false imprisonment during the attack on the woman on the afternoon of March 9th, 2010.
He was convicted on 11 counts and found not guilty by direction of the judge of one count of oral rape. Jakubowski was remanded in custody until June 27th for sentence.