A woman has told how she feared the face of a man laughing at her as he raped her would be the last thing she would see as he put his hands on her neck and began to choke her.
“I couldn’t breathe as I was being strangled and I thought I was going to die.
I didn’t want to die like this and I thought his face would be the last thing I would ever see in this life.
“I thought that I would never see my lovely family again and thought about never seeing the love of my life again.”
The woman was speaking as she delivered her victim impact statement at the sentencing hearing of her attacker, Lovemore Dube at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork.
Dube (25) initially claimed the woman had consented to sex but he later admitted raping her and had pleaded guilty at the first available opportunity at the Central Criminal Court.
Mr Justice Paul Carney thanked the woman for her victim impact statement and adjourned sentencing on Dube, who was born in Zimbabwe and came to Ireland in 2009, until tomorrow.
