A FOREIGN national who orally raped two Dublin women within days has been jailed for 15 years by Mr Justice Paul Carney at the Central Criminal Court.
Asogan Kanagasabai (22), a chef with no fixed address, video-recorded his attack on one of the victims with her camera phone which gardaí recovered when he was arrested. He pleaded guilty to orally raping the women early last year.
Mr Justice Carney said he accepted the prosecution contention that the court was dealing with two victims and a sexual predator in preference to the defence proposition that the court was dealing with three victims because Kanagasabai himself had been sexually abused.
He noted that Kanagasabai told psychiatrist Dr Brian McCaffrey that on the days he attacked the women he had taken ecstasy and then smoked "a very potent form of cannabis" which left him hallucinating. He followed both victims after spotting them and committed his "outrages" on them.
He said the crimes merited a 20-year sentence and discounting such factors as available in Kanagasabai's favour he imposed a 15-year term on each rape charge, with seven years concurrent for a threat to kill.
The judge directed that Kanagasabai's name be added to the register of sexual offenders. He noted that a deportation order had been signed on Kanagasabai and the court therefore wouldn't direct that he undergo post-release supervision so as not to place anything in the path of him being deported.
Kanagasabai grabbed the first victim from behind just as she approached her home at about 11pm and linked her arm as if to indicate they were together.
He then forced her into a nearby hedge and she began to cry, offering to bring him to the bank for money, but he replied that he didn't want money.
He told her he had a knife and would kill her and forced her to perform oral sex on him. He asked her if she was enjoying it while she continued to cry and fear for her life. Eventually as a cyclist passed by she screamed for help and managed to escape.
Her photofit description of Kanagasabai led to him being linked to this case following his arrest for the second crime some days later. She then picked him out in a formal identity parade.
She told the judge her experience had irreversibly changed her life in a number of ways. "How I think and who I am have been completely transformed," she said.
Kanagasabai's second victim also thought he was going to kill her and she said that she suffers flashbacks and from anxiety about her safety. She also has difficulty in men's company.
Kanagasabai made a brief statement in court in which he apologised to the victims and offered his "fullest regrets". "Nothing I say will ease their suffering; I am very sorry," he said. The court heard that he contacted a garda in the case soon after his arrest and asked him to tell the victims he would be pleading guilty in court.