A man who attacked and raped a woman he met on the dating app Tinder has been jailed for 7½ years.
During the attack in the woman’s home, Peter Loughran (36) banged the woman’s head off of the floor and slapped her in the face when she started praying out loud. At one point he began filming her with his phone and slapped her in the face when she tried to cover her face with her hair.
The Central Criminal Court heard that Loughran took off the victim’s clothes “very aggressively” before proceeding to rape and later orally rape her.
The incident came to an end after the victim told Loughran she was insulin dependent, pretended to faint and said she would die unless she went to hospital. She pretended to collapse as they were leaving the apartment, then went back inside her home once he had left and locked the door.
Loughran, originally from Co Monaghan, with an address at Glasnevin Downs, Ballygall, Dublin, pleaded guilty to rape and oral rape at an address in Dublin on January 5th 2018. His four previous convictions include convictions for possession of drugs, drink driving and public order offences.
At a sentencing hearing on Friday, Vincent Heneghan SC, prosecuting, read into the record a medical report which stated that after the offence, the victim was diagnosed with genital herpes which appeared to be a new infection and likely the result of the assault.
In her victim impact statement, which was read by counsel on her behalf, the victim said that Loughran “not only destroyed my life” but he also “drastically changed my future”.
“The memories of that day of horror will never be erased from my mind no matter how hard I try,” she said in her statement.
The victim said that “mentally and physically the marks are on me forever”. She said that if she was alone in her home she is afraid to open the door and if it was a man, she was afraid he would lock her in a bedroom for “another night of torture”.
She said she had scars on her vagina as a result of this and had an incurable STD. She said she was afraid she has passed the STD onto her child and would have them tested in the future.
“I just want it to be over, I never want to speak about this again,” she said.
Mr Justice Paul McDermott said the effect of this kind of assault on a person within their own home is “very difficult” for people looking in on the facts of this case to “appreciate and understand”.
Mr Justice McDermott said the trauma that is visited in those circumstances is “stark and deep”. He said that “very significant and terrible damage” had been done to the victim.
He said the offences were carried out in her home by a man who was “essentially a trusted guest”. He said the assaults were carried out “ in a manner that was quite degrading” and that her repeated pleas for him to stop were rejected.
Mr Justice McDermott said that these factors, as well as a recording being made of some of what Loughran did, were aggravating factors in the case.
He said that Loughran had expressed what he was satisfied was “genuine regret and remorse”. He noted that the accused has been assessed at a low to moderate risk of sexual reoffending and was willing to engage with any appropriate programme.
Mr Justice McDermott sentenced Loughran to nine years imprisonment, but suspended the final 18 months on strict conditions including that he refrain from using any online dating app and not contact the victim or her family in any way.