violent abuse | 

Woman found ‘perverse, hideous rape images’ of herself on Dublin husband’s computer

“It was like a bomb went off in my head”

Today at 15:58

A woman whose husband repeatedly raped her with household objects when she was passed out has described her shock at discovering he had been using her for his “sick fantasies”.

The woman said the moment she discovered “perverse, indecent, hideous images” on her husband’s home computer of him raping her with various implements, “It was like a bomb went off in my head”.

“He changed my past, my present and my future,” she said in her victim impact statement, which was read out at the man’s Central Criminal Court sentence hearing today.

She said she had so many unanswered questions. “Why had he done this to me? How long had it been going on? How did I not know? Was he always this way?”

The woman said she felt she was married to a stranger, who had inflicted “the most heinous and violent abuse” on her.

The Dublin man (49) was found guilty by a jury earlier this month of 11 counts of sexually assaulting his wife by penetrating her vagina with various objects including a knife, a cheese grater, a bottle, a carrot, a banana, a cucumber, a tulip, a wooden spatula, a decanter stopper, part of a shoe and a bicycle pump.

The verdicts were handed down earlier this month following a retrial, after the jury in the first trial returned not guilty verdicts to four counts and was unable to agree on the remaining counts.

The abuse occurred in the family home on unknown dates between January 2005 and September 2014.

It was the State’s case that the now 50-year-old woman was unconscious and unable to give her consent when her husband carried out the rapes.

A local detective told Eilis Brennan SC, prosecuting, that the abuse came to light when the woman discovered images her husband had taken of her on his computer in March 2019.

She asked him to leave the family home and made a complaint to gardai. The couple were married for over 20 years and have children together.

The court previously heard evidence that the woman discovered the images when she went searching for a video her husband had of taken her when she was drunk.

The woman said her husband had threatened to send this video to her parents and she wanted to delete it. The court heard the woman had a drinking problem during their marriage, which she later addressed through counselling, and that she was on medication for depression.

The defence case was that all of the sexual acts that took place were consensual. The man maintains his innocence and does not accept the verdict of the jury, Maurice Coffey SC, defending, told the sentence hearing. He has been in custody since he was convicted of the offences earlier this month.

In her victim impact statement, which was read out by one of the investigating gardaí in the case, the woman said she didn’t know her husband was into porn, let alone using her for his “sick fantasies”.

She said in the wake of the marriage breakdown, she suffered from anxiety, depression, sleeplessness and panic attacks. She said she struggled with financial issues and had to ask her family for money. “It was unbearable,” she said.

She said she deleted every memory of the man from her family home. “But I can’t delete the pain, humiliation and degradation he put me through,” she said.

The woman thanked her family and gardaí for their help and support. She said she will now begin the process of healing.

In mitigation, Mr Coffey asked the judge to take into account the fact the man has no previous convictions and was a “law-abiding citizen”.

The man’s sister took the stand at his sentence hearing and outlined his family background. The court heard the man came from a hard-working family. He was privately educated and previously had a good career, the court heard.

Mr Justice Paul Burns remanded the man in continuing custody and set a sentence date of January 15 next year.