A Tyrone man jailed last week for five years by the Central Criminal Court for the oral rape of a prostitute has had his sentence suspended after paying his victim £10,000 compensation.
Patrick Quinn (20), an apprentice plumber, of Ballygillen Road, Cookstown, pleaded guilty to committing the offence on August 18th, 1997, hours before the Cavan-Kerry All-Ireland football semi-final.
Mr Justice Carney said he agreed with the victim's decision to accept the offer of compensation which had been suggested at the hearing last week. He had no doubt she would use it for the benefit of her children.
She was a woman who had taken to prostitution to support her children and had provided sex for relatively small sums of money to a group of people that night.
She had accepted the compensation in the full knowledge it would trigger off a further look at the sentence on Quinn or she could have let the sentence stand.
Mr Justice Carney said: "I think she made the right choice to take the money". He added he wanted again to applaud the "non-judgmental approach" adopted by the Harcourt Terrace gardai to this woman and the skill they displayed in apprehending Quinn outside Croke Park.
He unconditionally suspended the balance of Quinn's sentence.
Defence counsel Mr Eamonn Leahy SC asked that £8,000 bail money be made out in a draft for the victim and his solicitor had an additional £2,000 in hand which would also be handed to the Garda for transmission to the victim.
Det Garda Eamonn Sweeney told prosecuting counsel Mr Kenneth Mills SC last week that the defendant assaulted the woman after being jibed by his colleagues when he thought he had accidentally handed over his ticket to the match with money to a prostitute.
Quinn's party had drunk a lot that night and had gone to the Baggot Street area where some of them had sexual liaisons with prostitutes.
Quinn's victim had been helping him to try to find the ticket when he grabbed her and penetrated her mouth violently three times before she bit his penis.