A former soldier and father-of-two who tried to force a disoriented woman to have oral sex with him has been jailed for 12 months.
Thomas Dalton (28 ) of Deerpark House, Baltinglass, Wicklow was convicted of sexual assault last March following an eight-day trial. He was acquitted of the related charge of oral rape on the woman.
He had pleaded not guilty to charges of oral rape and aggravated sexual assault of the woman in a laneway in Kilkenny city on April 1st, 2005.
The jury of five women and seven men took five hours and 38 minutes to return their verdict of not guilty of aggravated sexual assault but guilty of sexual assault on the final charge on day eight of the trial.
Dalton has 16 previous convictions for theft, road traffic offences, and perjury.
Mr Justice George Birmingham commented that this trial had “shown the criminal justice system to be unbalanced”.
He noted that Dalton had allowed an attack on the victim’s character and background in the witness box when he knew his own, which included dishonesty and perjury, wouldn’t be questioned.
Mr Justice Birmingham said a “lengthy custodial sentence would have been inevitable” for Dalton had the jury delivered a guilty verdict on the serious charges of oral rape or aggravated sexual assault.
He said instead the jury convicted Dalton of a more moderate sexual assault and the sentence must reflect the verdict.
He backdated the sentence to when Dalton entered custody and registered him as a sex offender for the next ten years.
Earlier, the victim had said in her victim impact report that she became a nervous wreck after the attack and had to move house because she was afraid of Dalton. She said Dalton had never apologised or expressed remorse and that she felt she was the one on trial.
Garda Francis Duffy told prosecuting counsel, Mr Ronan Kennedy BL, that the victim was walked to a local disco by her boyfriend. She met some friends inside and had several vodka and cokes and two shots of spirits. Later she became very disorientated and decided she wanted to go home.
She left the disco through a back entrance but later had no recollection of this. A friend saw her walking down the laneway with a man he assumed to be her boyfriend. She could not recall getting home but said when she reached her front gate she realised a man had attacked her in the laneway beside her house.
She said she remembered being pushed down the lane by Dalton and that she cried and pleaded, “don't do anything.”
She said that she shouted for her boyfriend to help her. When she was examined later she had scratches and bruises from her knees to her groin and there were tears in her tights.
Gardai began an investigation and found that Dalton had been kicked out of the club eight minutes before the attack. They interviewed him but he denied everything. They later found DNA on some false nails that had fallen off the victim as she was attacked.
This DNA matched Dalton’s and he was arrested. He said she had kissed him in the laneway before inviting him back to a house. He claimed he did not mention this initially because he did not realise how serious it was.
Defence counsel, Mr Michael O’Higgins SC, said his client was the father of two young children and was in a relationship with their mother. He said he had joined the army after leaving school and served with the equestrian unit before leaving and setting up a landscaping business which now employs four people.
