A 70-year-old man has been convicted at Mullingar District Court of sexually assaulting a female friend in her own home.
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admitted that he had climbed into her bed when her family had left for work at 8.30am on a morning in January this year.
At the time of the offence, he was good friends with the woman and stayed with her and her family a number of times a year.
They had been socialising in a local pub on the night before the assault.
Explicit details of the invasive attack, which became progressively rougher, were given in court by Inspector Aidan Minnock, who read from the woman’s statement.
She described how the man tried to pull down the blanket which she had pulled up around her neck while he succeeded in using his mouth and hands to assault her in a number of ways.
Eventually she managed to use her body to shove him away. She was afraid during the attack which happened in her own home, in her own bedroom.
The pensioner has no previous convictions and the court heard he was deeply remorseful and ashamed.
He wanted to emphasise how sincerely sorry he was for what he had done.
The court heard he had consumed a large amount of alcohol the night before which formed a cocktail with the “extensive medication” he is on for a number of conditions.
Being before the court was a horrifying and frightening experience for him, the court heard and his legal team emphasized that by pleading guilty he had saved his victim the trauma of a trial.
The Director of Public Prosecutions had directed that the case could be heard in the lesser District Court only if he pleaded guilty. On a plea of not guilty, the case would have been heard before a judge and jury in the District Court.
His barrister asked that he be spared a jail sentence in view of his age and the way he had dealt with the case.
Judge John Lindsay convicted the man and ordered that he pay a fine of €500 on condition that €1,000 be paid to both the victim and Teach Fáilte, a women’s refuge in Mullingar.
He will appear before the court again in February for evidence that the payments are made and to then finalise the case.
