A man who smirked at a woman after raping her on three different times while she slept was jailed for 10 years.<\/p>\n
William Kavanagh, (58), Wolfe Tone Street, Kilmallock, Co Limerick was convicted of three counts of raping the woman, following a retrial at the Central Criminal Court, sitting in Limerick.<\/p>\n
Kavanagh had previous convictions for breach of a safety order, harassment and criminal damage.<\/p>\n
Judge Sean Gillane, with the consent of the victim, agreed to lift reporting restrictions, allowing Kavanagh to be identified publicly.<\/p>\n
Kavanagh was previously arrested and charged with 20 counts of indecent assault and five counts of raping the woman.<\/p>\n
He contested these charges at trial and was acquitted by a jury of all of the indecent assaults; the jury could not agree on a verdict on the rape charges.<\/p>\n
Another jury found Kavanagh guilty of the three rape charges by a majority decision (of 10 to two) following a retrial earlier this month.<\/p>\n
The prosecution was led by senior counsel, Alice Fawsitt SC, with Lily Buckley BL, assisted by Detective Garda David Gee, Bruff Garda Station.<\/p>\n
Outline the facts, Det Garda Gee said the victim was \u201cprescribed antidepressants, with a side effect being sedation, causing a person to sleep heavier than normal\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn three separate occasions, having gone to bed and having taken her medication, she awoke to find the accused\u2019s penis penetrating her vagina,\u201d said Det Garda Gee.<\/p>\n
Prosecuting counsel Alice Fawsitt, said the victim told Kavanagh\u2019s trial that after raping her a second time he had a \u201csmirk on his face\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe said (Kavanagh) told her that her medication was dangerous, he couldn’t wake her and he could have done anything to her,\u201d said Fawsitt.<\/p>\n
‘Smirking, exploiting, belittling’<\/p>\n
Gillane said he agreed with the Director of Public Prosecutions that Kavanagh\u2019s \u201csmirking\u201d was his way of \u201cexploiting\u201d and \u201cbelittling\u201d the victim.<\/p>\n
The judge said Kavanagh\u2019s rape, as well as his comments to her later, had made the victim \u201cphysically sick and disgusted\u201d.<\/p>\n
The victim said that after the rapes she \u201cdid not care\u201d if she lived or died.<\/p>\n
\u201cDeath would have been easier,\u201d the woman said, reading a victim impact statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe raped me while I was already in a vulnerable state. To this day, I struggle to be alone as I get intrusive thoughts bringing me back and reliving the rapes,\u201d said the woman.<\/p>\n
\u201cI still have nightmares of the incidents,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Kavanagh was found guilty of raping the woman on occasions when she was prescribed sedative medicine, which Judge Gillane said was an aggravating factor in Kavanagh\u2019s \u201cexploitation of the occasions on which she was taking medication, and this added to his level of culpability\u201d.<\/p>\n
Judge Gilllane said this had a particularly \u201cegregious consequence\u201d for the victim, in that she became reluctant to take her prescribed medication due to Kavanagh \u201cinterfering with her in her sleep\u201d.<\/p>\n
Vulnerable situation<\/p>\n
The judge said the impact on the woman spoke for itself and that she had been in an extremely vulnerable situation at the time of the rapes.<\/p>\n
Judge Gillane described Kavanagh\u2019s previous evictions as \u201cdisturbing\u201d.<\/p>\n
Kavanagh, was represented by senior defence counsel Brian McInerney, with Liam Carroll BL, instructed by solicitor John Lynch.<\/p>\n
McInerney told the court Kavanagh continues to deny the tapes and that Kavanagh did not accept the jury\u2019s decision in his retrial.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have the clearest instructions that while he acknowledges the jury returned majority verdicts of guilty, he does not accept these verdicts and continues to assert his innocence,\u201d said McInerney.<\/p>\n
Judge Gillane said he was satisfied that an 11-year headline sentence was appropriate.<\/p>\n
After taking into consideration Kavanagh\u2019s long work history and that \u201che is not a young man, soon to turn 59\u201d, the judge reduced Kavanagh\u2019s prison sentence to 10 years.<\/p>\n
Kavanagh\u2019s name was added to a national list of registered sex offenders.<\/p>\n
Kavanagh did not show any emotion after the sentence was imposed.<\/p>\n
If you have been affected by this story please contact the 24 Hour Rape Crisis Helpline on 1800 778888 or the Garda Confidential Line on 1800666111.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who smirked at a woman after raping her on three different times while she slept was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":373126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-373125","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=373125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/373125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/373126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=373125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=373125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=373125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}