Man given suspended sentence by Cork court for sexual assault 

A Leaving Cert student’s sexual assault approximately 10 years ago, which she called “a slow-motion horror”, resulted in the assailant getting a suspended jail sentence following a one-week remand in custody.

Prosecution barrister Imelda Kelly said the injured party did not want to be identified, but had no issue with the identification of Ruairi Kennedy, aged 28, formerly of Glanmire, County Cork, who has been working overseas for several years.

He pleaded guilty at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to the sexual assault.

Judge Helen Boyle imposed a sentence of two and a half years, backdated to when Kennedy went into custody on February 19, but the balance of which has now been suspended.

Judge Boyle accepted that this was a sexual assault carried out by an 18-year-old on another 18-year-old and that he immediately expressed remorse for his actions.

The injured party said: “The night you attacked me shattered my life in ways I could never have imagined.

“After what you did to me, everything I had worked for, every dream, every goal was destroyed.

“Retelling my trauma became its own form of torment, a never-ending cycle of pain that left me gasping for relief, but none came.

“I felt like I was living in a nightmare that wouldn’t end, a slow-motion horror I couldn’t escape.

“You were someone I trusted… You abused that trust.”

Testified

Detective Garda Craig Peterson testified that the victim woke to find the defendant with his hand inside her clothes, near her vagina but not inside, and she brushed his hand away, fell back to sleep, and the next morning she told her mother, brother and a friend what happened.

Alice Fawsitt, senior counsel, submitted that: “They had both been at an 18th birthday party. They had a lot to drink.

“There was weed consumed and four of them went back to her house.

“He is now married, living and working outside of Ireland now. He pleaded guilty to one count of sexual assault.

“There was phone communication between the defendant and her [the injured party’s] brother, in which he apologised for what he had done.

“And he apologised to her by Facebook message to her brother.”

In a letter, the defendant said: “I realised how serious this was the next morning. I felt disgusted. I felt too ashamed to look at her in the eye.

“I was drunk, but that is no excuse. I felt scared of myself — to think of what I could do.

“I am not asking for forgiveness. I just want my apology to be heard.”