Victim tells of horrific ordeal at hands of brute who attacked her in her own home and then threatened her with the UVF\n<\/p>\n
Neil McFaul walked free from court despite pleading guilty to sexual assault and assault causing ABH.<\/p>\n
He also threatened his victim with the UVF if she went to police about the attack.<\/p>\n
The 32-year-old, from Village Hill Mews in Ballyclare, Co Antrim, had initially claimed the sexual contact with his victim was consensual.<\/p>\n
He later changed his plea to guilty to sexual assault and assault causing actual bodily harm. He was acquitted of two charges of rape, including anal rape, sexual assault by penetration and causing a person to engage in sexual activity.<\/p>\n
Despite the severity of the attack in the victim\u2019s home, which left her bruised and suicidal, he was given an 18-month probation order, 100 hours of community service and placed on the Sex Offenders register for five years.<\/p>\n
His victim says she\u2019s disappointed McFaul won\u2019t spend any time behind bars, and she\u2019s speaking out to warn other women about the violent thug.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m doing this for other women out there. I just don\u2019t want this to happen to anyone else,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Neil McFaul<\/p>\n
The pair met in a bar in Randalstown on July 12, 2023 when McFaul was charming and chatty at first. They shared drinks, he offered her cocaine and they kissed in the bar\u2019s smoking area.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talked about life, wains, holidays, general chit chat, and I thought he was a decent guy,\u201d says the 37-year-old.<\/p>\n
She invited him back to her home, making it clear that sex was not on the cards.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore we got to my house I told him if you\u2019re coming for sex, you\u2019re coming to the wrong house because I don\u2019t sleep with people the first time I meet them, and I was having my period,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Within minutes of entering her home, McFaul\u2019s nice guy mask slipped.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were just sitting in my living room and all of a sudden I got this big smack across my face,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said \u2018what the f***\u2019. He said \u2018don\u2019t f***ing look at me like that\u2019. I put my head down and he said \u2018who asked you to put your head down\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was trying to bully me. I tried to get up and that\u2019s when he grabbed me.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe pulled my trousers down and put me over his knee and started slapping my buttocks and left them black and blue. He grabbed my breasts and left them bruised as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The assault continued for an hour and the victim says she was frozen with fear.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople said to me why didn\u2019t you fight back?<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m five foot two, and he\u2019s a big fella. He had already hit me and I thought if I fight back what is he going to do? I feared for my life. Nothing like that has ever happened to me.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just couldn\u2019t wait to get him out of my house.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Neil](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/d7e6316e-8979-473b-8776-2fba3d5cc03a.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Neil McFaul walked free from court despite pleading guilty<\/p>\n
Today’s News in 90 Seconds – September 29th <\/p>\n
Before leaving her home McFaul also threatened her with loyalist paramilitaries.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told him I was going to ring the boys, by which I meant the police,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said if you\u2019re threatening me with your boys I will have to get my boys involved, and he threatened me with the UVF.\u201d<\/p>\n
McFaul then demanded that she showed him how to get home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told him to get out of my house and he wasn\u2019t for going. I had to show him how to get out of the area I live in.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfterwards I didn\u2019t ring the police for two days because I didn\u2019t know what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
She told family members immediately about her ordeal and was still in shock when she contacted the PSNI.<\/p>\n
The victim was interviewed at her home and later at the Rowan Sexual Assault Referral Centre, which involved intimate examinations and interviews for eight hours.<\/p>\n
The full impact of the assault only hit her afterwards, when the victim says she never felt safe in her home again, particularly in the living room where McFaul viciously attacked her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could never sit in that room again. I had to get rid of the sofa where he attacked me, and I slept with a bat in the bedroom. I was torturing myself.<\/p>\n
\u201cEventually I told my mum I have to get out of here.\u201d<\/p>\n
She moved house, and later had to leave two jobs because of panic attacks, depression and feeling suicidal.<\/p>\n
While waiting for the court proceedings she also discovered McFaul on a Facebook group, \u2018Are We Dating the Same Guy?\u2019, where multiple women describe him as a conceited creep.<\/p>\n
The victim says she was devastated that he didn\u2019t receive a jail sentence for his crimes.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis solicitor was telling the court he\u2019s from a good family and he has no convictions. I\u2019m from a good family. I have no convictions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was so disappointed. If he\u2019d even got three months in jail I would have been happy, for them to acknowledge what he did.\u201d<\/p>\n
McFaul is now subject to a combination order of probation and community service.<\/p>\n
He must live at an approved address and must inform his probation officer of any new relationships.<\/p>\n
He must also undergo alcohol or drug treatment as directed by his probation officer, and is banned from any contact with the victim or her family without prior approval.<\/p>\n
Following the sentencing hearing she is now determined to move on with her life, but the horrific experience has left her wary of men.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo years ago I couldn\u2019t have talked about it but time does help a wee bit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to try and move on for my children\u2019s sake because I don\u2019t want them suffering because of me.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I will never forget about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I want people to know what he did so it doesn\u2019t happen to anyone else,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victim tells of horrific ordeal at hands of brute who attacked her in her own home and then…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-50471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50471","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=50471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}