A man who repeatedly raped his wife with various household objects while she was passed out in an “egregious breach of the normal trust between a married couple” has been jailed for 11 years.
The Dublin man (49) was found guilty by a jury last month of 11 counts of sexually assaulting his wife by penetrating her vagina with various objects, including a knife, a cheese grater, a bottle, a carrot, a banana, a cucumber, a tulip, a wooden spatula, a decanter stopper, part of a shoe, and a bicycle pump.
The abuse occurred in the family home on unknown dates between January 2005 and September 2014.
The verdicts were handed down following a retrial, after the jury in the first trial returned not guilty verdicts on four counts and was unable to agree on the remaining counts.
It was the State’s case that the now 50-year-old woman was unconscious and unable to give her consent when her husband, who cannot be named to protect her anonymity, carried out the rapes. He has no previous convictions.
In her victim impact statement, which she read out at a previous sentence hearing, the woman described her shock at discovering her husband had been using her for his “sick fantasies”.
The woman said the moment she discovered the “perverse, indecent, hideous images” on her husband's home computer of him raping her with various implements, “It was like a bomb went off in my head”.
“He changed my past, my present and my future,” she said.
Was he always this way?
She said she had so many unanswered questions.
“Why had he done this to me? How long had it been going on? How did I not know? Was he always this way?” she said in her statement.
The woman said she felt she was married to a stranger, who had inflicted “the most heinous and violent abuse” on her.
Sentencing the man on Monday, Mr Justice Paul Burns said it was difficult to convey what the woman had gone through.
He said not only had she discovered that her husband and the father of her children was someone “completely different” to the man she thought he was, but that she also had to sit through a number of trials where “degrading and dehumanising images” of her were shown to the juries.
She bore these trials “with immense courage and dignity”, the judge said.
The judge noted there was little that could be said in mitigation for the man, who continues to maintain his innocence.
The judge said the accused engaged in an “egregious breach of the normal trust between a married couple” by raping his wife repeatedly and over a protracted period of time.
Mr Justice Burns handed down a sentence of 12 years and suspended the final year on a number of conditions, including that the man engage in a course on sexuality and consent upon his release from custody.
Images
A local detective previously told Eilis Brennan SC, prosecuting, that the abuse came to light when the woman discovered images her husband had taken of her on his computer in March 2019.
She asked him to leave the family home and made a complaint to the Gardaí.
The couple were married for over 20 years and have children together.
The court previously heard evidence that the woman discovered the images when she went searching for a video her husband had taken of her when she was drunk.
The woman said her husband had threatened to send this video to her parents, adding that she wanted to delete it.
The court heard the woman had a drinking problem during their marriage, which she later addressed through counselling, and that she was on medication for depression.
The defence claimed all the sexual acts which took place were consensual.
The man has been in custody since he was convicted.
In her victim impact statement, which was read out by one of the investigating gardaí in the case, the woman said she did not know her husband was into porn, let alone using her for his “sick fantasies”.
She said in the wake of the marriage breakdown, she suffered from anxiety, depression, sleeplessness and panic attacks. She said she struggled with financial issues and had to ask her family for money. “It was unbearable,” she said.
She said she deleted every memory of the man from her family home, “but I can't delete the pain, humiliation and degradation he put me through”.
The woman thanked her family and gardaí for their help and support, adding she will now begin the process of healing.
In mitigation, Mr Coffey asked the judge to take into account the fact the man has no previous convictions and was a “law-abiding citizen”.
The man's sister took the stand at his sentence hearing and outlined his family background, telling the court he came from a hard-working family.
The court heard the accuses was privately educated and previously had a good career.
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.
