‘absolute joke’ | 

Pervert walks free after sex attack on sleeping woman at house party

Victim describes four-year delay in her case as ‘an absolute joke’

Paul Higgins

Today at 09:54

A woman whose sex abuser walked free from court has described the handling of the case as “an absolute disaster”.

Mark ‘Greengrass’ Cathcart was handed a 14-month prison sentence, suspended for three years partly because of delays in the case.

Judge Alistair Devlin praised the “courage, persistence and determination” of the victim for sticking with her complaint.

But the woman said she felt “forgotten about” by the PSNI and Public Prosecution Service (PPS).

“It’s an absolute joke the length of time it took to get the case to court and for it to conclude,” added the sexual assault victim.

“For Cathcart to be able to use that to get a lesser sentence, it’s a joke, an absolute joke.

“He cried that the case was hanging over him for so long, had affected his mental health and he had to leave his job, but so what?

“He was on bail, on benefits and able to get on with life.”

Judge Devlin told the pervert that while his crime merited a 14-month sentence, a combination of factors had led him to take an exceptional course in suspending the jail term for three years.

One of those factors was the four-year delay in bringing the case to court, which breached the defendant’s right to have a fair trial within a reasonable time.

Judge Devlin also told Cathcart, however, he now stood as a convicted sex offender “for all the world to see”.

The defendant, originally from Kells but with a bail address at Rosses Meadow in Ballymena, pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting the woman on August 25, 2019.

A prosecuting lawyer outlined how the victim and her partner had a party at their house on the night of the attack.

After going to bed, she was awakened by someone touching her.

The lawyer said: “She didn’t initially realise who it was, thinking that it was her partner, but she then saw the defendant on his knees at the bottom of the bed and her partner beside her.

“It was the defendant who was touching her, and she knew the defendant as Greengrass.”

The prosecution lawyer said the Covid-19 pandemic had an impact on the backlog of cases, playing a significant part in the delay in bringing the matter to court.

A defence lawyer told the hearing it was clear that everyone partying in the victim’s home that night had “consumed vast amounts of alcohol”.

He added: “I do not put that forward as an excuse, merely as an explanation.”

As well as the suspended prison sentence, Cathcart was placed on the sex offenders register for 10 years and handed a five-year Sexual Offences Prevention Order.