A married farmer from Co Cork was sentenced on Monday to a total of 19 years in jail for raping another man twice, but he will serve less than ten years for just one of the offences.
Thomas “Tossy” Nyhan (60), of Crookstown, Co Cork, was sentenced to 11½ years with the final year suspended, for raping the man, in April 2019.
Nyhan, who has four children, received a second sentence of 8½ years for raping the man, in January 2011.
The rapes occurred at a location in Limerick, the court heard.
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As both sentences are to run concurrent to each other, Nyhan will only serve part of the total.
The sentences were backdated to June 23rd last when Nyhan first entered custody. He has no previous convictions.
Nyhan had contested two counts of anal rape of the victim, but he was unanimously convicted by a jury of both rapes, following an 11-day trial, held at the Central Criminal Court, sitting in Limerick, last May.
Ms Justice Mary Ellen Ring had previously lifted reporting restrictions allowing Nyhan be named.
The judge also directed that the victim was entitled to his anonymity and ordered that he not be identified.
The victim told the trial that the rapes were so painful they were like “barbed wire” inside him.
“He (Nyhan) raped me twice. This was not a moment of confusion,” the victim said in an impact statement. “It was cold, calculated and violent – he knew what he was doing – and eight years later he did it again."
He said he disclosed the second rape to his GP in 2019, because, he said, he “could not hold the weight of his abuse any longer”. Later he told Gardaí he had also been raped by Nyhan in 2011.
“He (Nyhan) is a rapist and that will follow him for the rest of his life and it should,” the man said.
When questioned by Gardaí in May 2019, Nyhan accepted sexual activity had occurred between him and the victim, yet he denied raping him.
During the trial, and under cross-examination by Nyhan’s barrister, senior counsel Mark Nicholas, the victim agreed that he had remained in regular contact with Nyhan following the first rape in 2011.
The victim described as “lies” unfounded claims by Nyhan that he had asked the farmer for money for sex and that he had grabbed Nyhan’s “crotch” a number of times and removed his own clothes to have sex with Nyhan.
The victim told Mr Nicholas: “I told him (Nyhan) to stop, I didn’t like it.”
DNA swabs taken by forensic gardaí of a stain at the scene of the 2019 rape matched Nyhan’s DNA profile.
Nyhan’s wife, Mary Nyhan, supported her husband to court every day of his trial and throughout the criminal proceedings.
In mitigation, the judge took into consideration Nyhan’s age, no previous convictions, health difficulties and that he has been a hard-working family man.
