A man who raped a woman at a house party four years ago has been jailed for seven years.
Tadgh Lonergan (28) of Kilsheelan, Clonmel, Tipperary, was on Monday handed an eight-and-a-half-year sentence with the final 18 months suspended on strict conditions.
Lonergan was convicted following a Central Criminal Court jury last month. He had pleaded not guilty to rape at a house in Tipperary on June 6th, 2021.
His victim wishes to retain her anonymity but indicated she has no objection to Lonergan being named in reporting the case.
Imposing sentence on Monday, Mr Justice Tony Hunt said the aggravating feature of this case was the impact on the victim.
He noted that the rape took place in a room where she was staying for the night and that she was entitled to feel safe there.
In his sentencing remarks, the judge said the court often sees young men who “seem to think it is their God-given right to roam into bedrooms occupied by people they don’t know”.
The judge continued that it seemed to be “risk-taking of an extraordinary variety” and, based on what the court hears “seems to be something that is commonplace”.
“This case shows there are serious consequences for people who take those types of risks where it all goes badly wrong,” Mr Justice Hunt noted.
The judge noted there was some limited mitigation, including Lonergan's work history and lack of previous convictions.
The judge said Lonergan's personal background makes it “all the more surprising that he should be carrying round the kind of attitudes which led him to this place”.
“One would thought he was capable of learning the lessons life has to offer; apparently, that is not the case,” the judge said, adding that Lonergan has not accepted the jury's verdict, his wrongdoing or the effect on the victim.
Mr Justice Hunt said the court was, therefore, “entitled to assume the attitude which caused this offending remains intact”.
He said Lonergan's actions on the night displayed an “egotistical” view of sexuality and that he “should know better”.
Mr Justice Hunt said Lonergan's denial amounts to a “slur” against the victim, and the court inferred that Lonergan's position is that she is a “consummate actress who has lied her way” through meetings with gardaí and two trials.
He said the court's view is that the victim was genuinely suffering from extreme distress, not simply “very good at simulating” the effect of it.
“He needs to stop kidding himself about this matter and his approach to sexual matters”, the judge said.
Mr Justice Hunt directed Lonergan to undergo 18 months of post-release supervision, to have no contact with the victim and not to commit further sexual offences during his lifetime.
At a previous hearing, Mr Justice Hunt acknowledged evidence that Lonergan previously worked in stud farms, including Coolmore Stud in Tipperary.
He accepted a letter from Lonergan’s partner and acknowledged that he had no previous convictions.
“But previous good character goes up in smoke in the context of such an offence,” Mr Justice Hunt said.
Victim impact statement
The woman took the stand to read her victim impact statement into the record at a previous sentence hearing.
“He has made me feel like a prisoner in my own life,” the woman said before she added that she hoped maybe Lonergan would now use his time in custody to reflect on “how selfish he was – how his behaviour was completely unacceptable and how he has destroyed my life”.
“I am determined that with continued support, I will find the old me again,” the woman concluded before she asked Justice Tony Hunt to “consider the profound and lasting effect this crime has had on my life”.
Coleman Cody SC, defending, said his client was the youngest of three children, and his siblings were in court to support him.
He said there were many “positive aspects” to his client’s character and he handed in a letter from his partner which outlined that Lonergan is in a committed and stable relationship.
“He will still be a young man when he re-enters society,” Mr Cody said before he asked Mr Justice Hunt to acknowledge that a prison sentence would be more difficult for a person like Lonergan than it would be for others who may be more familiar with the criminal justice system.
Mr Cody asked the court to accept that Lonergan would be “publicly known as a person who has been convicted of such an offence”.
Justice Hunt said the evidence in the case was that it had been a “perfectly normal night out” and that now two young people are before the court “whose lives have been totally turned upside down.”
A local sergeant told Eoghan Cole SC, prosecuting, that there were two trials in the case after a jury failed to agree on a verdict in an earlier trial this year.
She said that the woman was 26 years old when she attended a friend's party in Tipperary. Lonergan arrived later at the house, and the woman said they had some “unremarkable” conversation.
She later went to bed. She had been in the en-suite brushing her teeth, and when she came back into the room, Lonergan was there. He tried to kiss her, but she told him: “No, this is not happening.”
The sergeant agreed with Mr Cole that Lonergan forcibly kissed the woman and bit her neck before he forced her onto the bed and raped her.
The woman later said it “was the worst I ever felt”. She tried to push the man off during the rape. She eventually managed to get to the bedroom door and found it was locked. She managed to get out of the room and went to the bathroom.
The woman said she heard other people asking Lonergan: “What the fuck did you do to her?”
Mr Cole said that the trial heard that people could hear screaming from the room and the woman shouting, “Help….get off me”.
The woman reported the rape to the gardaí and was later treated in the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit. She was found to have bruising on her neck, thigh and ankle.
Garda interviews
Lonergan was arrested on June 29th, 2021, and interviewed six times. He denied any wrongdoing.
He claimed that the woman had touched him on the leg affectionately earlier in the night.
He said he had been upstairs and saw the woman in one of the bedrooms. He went in to talk to her. He claimed she asked him if he was involved with someone else before there was consensual kissing and consensual sex.
Lonergan said someone knocked on the door, and the woman told him to stop, so he stopped.
He claimed that the reason she made up the allegation was because she was simply embarrassed by the fact that they had sex.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie/services/helpline/ or visit Rape Crisis Help.
