Man convicted of raping his wife with various household objects

Isabel Hayes

A man who was on trial accused of raping his wife with various household objects while she was passed out has been found guilty of the charges against him.

The Dublin man (49) stood trial for a second time at the Central Criminal Court this month, after a jury was unable to reach a verdict on most of the charges against him following a trial in October last year.

The man pleaded not guilty to 11 counts of sexually assaulting his wife with various objects. The abuse is alleged to have occurred in the family home on unknown dates between January 2005 and September 2014.

On Friday after about three and a half hours of deliberating, the jury returned unanimous guilty verdicts on all counts. The woman wept as the guilty verdicts were handed down. The man made no reaction.

Mr Justice Paul Burns thanked the jury for its service in what he said had been a particularly difficult case. He excused them from jury duty for a period of seven years.

He remanded the man in custody, noting he has now been found guilty of “particularly heinous crimes”. He adjourned the matter for sentence on December 18th.

It was the State’s case that the now 50-year-old woman was unconscious and unable to give her consent when her husband carried out the rapes.

Eilis Brennan SC, prosecuting, told the jury that the alleged abuse came to light when the woman discovered the abuse material on her husband's laptop in March 2019.

She asked him to leave the family home and made a complaint to 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 and 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.

She told the first trial that she saw images of her husband raping her and doing “awful things, sexual things with objects”. “I was passed out,” she said. “...There was no way I would allow these things to happen to me.” She said she asked her husband to move out the following day.

The defence case was that all of the sexual acts that took place were consensual. The jury was told the man accepted that he was the person who inserted the objects but that he did so with his wife's consent.

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.