Judge takes account of early guilty plea in sentencing
THE YOUNG man who repeatedly raped a married woman on a Sunday morning in the grounds of a west Dublin church and school has been jailed for 12 years by Mr Justice Paul Carney at the Central Criminal Court.
Richard Finn (20) subjected her to more than two hours of rapes on July 22nd, 2007 during which he used his mobile phone to photograph parts of her body. This phone was never recovered.
Finn, of Rockfield Drive, Clondalkin, was soon identified as the attacker from her description of him, as well as information arising out of two similar type attacks on women around the same time.
Mr Justice Carney said that aggravating factors included Finn’s filming of her exposed body and the distress caused the victim by the fact that the camera-phone he used has never been recovered.
He said she found the violence being carried out on her on consecrated grounds especially distressing in view of her Polish Catholic upbringing.
There was also the multiplicity of the assaults including a form of sex that she found particularly offensive.
Mr Justice Carney directed that Finn’s name be added to the register of sex offenders and that he undergo five years’ post-release supervision.
He said he was required by the Supreme Court to identify the range of penalties available to the court and where on that scale to place the crime before discounting on such matters of mitigation available.
Mr Justice Carney noted that following a judgment by the Chief Justice that drink or drugs afforded no defence and little by way of mitigation, but he took account of Finn’s early plea which, he said, meant the victim did not have to travel back from Poland although she would have done so if necessary.
Finn had pleaded guilty to rape and oral rape of the victim whom he had grabbed from behind at about 7.30am on Convent Road, Clondalkin, while she walked to work and then forcibly detained in the grounds of the Church of Immaculate Conception and Scoil Mhuire until nearly 10am.
“I felt sick, like I was going to vomit,” she had told gardaí.
The victim had said in her victim impact statement that the horrific ordeal had completely changed her life in a negative way. She had returned home to Poland and did not travel back for the court hearing.
Mr Justice Carney noted that this was not the first case to come before the court in which a foreign woman was attacked on a public highway and viciously raped.
He accepted that Finn had indicated genuine remorse and his previous convictions were not significant. He directed that Finn be given credit for the time he has spent in custody since 2007.
After the guilty plea last week, Mr Justice Carney had said he wanted to note in public that he had received a number of what he described as “letters of support” for Finn from a parish priest and others parties he named.
Defence counsel Michael O’Higgins (with Bernard Condon), had told Mr Justice Carney that the “referees” who provided the testimonials for Finn had been informed that he had pleaded guilty to rape for which he was to be sentenced and they had not written them “in a vacuum”.
He said Finn had directed him to offer an apology to her through the court for what he did.
Mr O’Higgins said Finn had “co-operated willingly” with gardaí at every stage of the investigation leading to his guilty plea which counsel said “was a matter of substance and made at the first available opportunity”.
He also noted a series of school and other reports on his client who had suffered from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in his formative years and suggested that people with the ADHD problem were more likely to get into trouble with alcohol.
“His teachers saw the good side of my client who also has a good work record,” Mr O’Higgins said.
Prosecuting counsel Mary Rose Gearty had told Mr Justice Carney that the Director of Public Prosecutions placed the case at the higher category, considering the repetitious nature of the rapes and the humiliation caused to the victim.