Five years of life ‘lost’ waiting for rape trial – Raleigh

Updated / Wednesday, 3 Jul 2024 14:59

A woman who was raped in Galway in July 2019 has said that she “lost five years” of her life waiting for the case to come to trial.

A jury found Jonathan Moran, from Tower View, Mullingar in Co Westmeath, guilty of the charge and he was jailed for eight years on Monday.

The 26-year-old used a bottle to carry out the attack in a garden shed after meeting Bláthnaid Raleigh while she was attending the Galway Arts Festival.

Ms Raleigh, who is also from Mullingar, said that, in the aftermath of the attack, she used words like “incident” or “assault” to describe what happened to her as she never felt she had the right to say “I was raped”.

She said that she did not want to confront what happened, but when the verdict came, she said she could finally say “I was raped” .’For victims of sexual violence, control is a massive thing, and that control being taken away from you, it’s not a nice place to be