A Dublin man has been given a 12-year prison sentence at the Circuit Criminal Court in Tralee for falsely imprisoning a woman on the night of her graduation and subjecting her to a five-hour ordeal in the Dublin mountains.
Judge Carroll Moran said the woman could have been killed and that the savage attack was "completely irrational".
Robert Quigley (27), Seskin View Road, Tallaght, an electronics graduate who has been living in Kerry for a number of years, had earlier pleaded guilty to falsely imprisoning the woman in Wicklow and Dublin, to assaulting her causing her harm at Military Road, Glasamucky, Co Dublin, and to sexually assaulting her at Military Road.
Judge Moran sentenced him to eight years and three years on the assault charges to run concurrently. He suspended the last four years of the 12-year sentence for imprisonment on conditions of supervision.
He took into account Quigley's early guilty plea which had spared his victim having to give evidence. He also took his previous clean record (he had only one conviction for a motor insurance offence) into account.
The woman had been celebrating her master's graduation on November 19th, 2006. She sat into the back of Quigley's car at 2.20am in Harcourt Street thinking it to be a hackney, the judge recalled. He had posed as a garda. He tied her hands with cables, drove her to the Dublin mountains and had "brutally assaulted her".
Judge Moran said photographs of the injuries testified to "a brutal attack". He had adjourned sentencing to yesterday for a psychiatric report "because no explanation had been given why he committed the offence".
The extensive report "and in-depth examination " by a psychiatrist at the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum found there was some history of fantasising and fabricating stories and some hint of Quigley indulging in self-harm. It also said he had a moderate risk of reoffending.
The conclusion was it was personality related. Quigley was suffering from "no major illness", any psychotic illness or mood disorder. This was "an underlying personality difficulty, not a mental disorder", Judge Moran said.
Quigley will be under supervision when released for the four suspended years of his sentence and will be placed on the sex offenders register indefinitely.
Leave to appeal was refused.