A wife whose husband regularly raped her with household items while she was passed out has condemned his ‘sick fantasies’ in a heartbreaking statement.
The horrified woman discovered her husband of over 20 years had been repeatedly raping her while she was asleep after finding the ‘hideous images’ on his computer.
The Dublin man, 49, was found guilty by a jury earlier this month for 11 counts of sexually assaulting his wife between January 2005 and September 2014.
In her victim impact statement, which was read out by one of the investigating Gardaí in the case, the 50-year-old 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.
The Dublin man, 49, was found guilty by a jury earlier this month for 11 counts of sexually assaulting his wife in their family home between January 2005 and September 2014
Since the shocking discovery, she said that she has 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.
In her statement, she also spoke of her shock since discovering the ‘perverse, indecent, hideous images’, saying it was ‘like a bomb went off’ in her head.
‘He changed my past, my present and my future,’ she said.
Her statement was read out at the man’s Central Criminal Court sentence hearing on Monday. She added how many unanswered questions she has been left with.
‘Why had he done this to me? How long had it been going on? How did I not know? Was he always this way?’ she said.
The woman added that she felt she was married to a stranger, who had inflicted ‘the most heinous and violent abuse’ on her.
The woman also thanked her family and Gardaí for their help and support. She said she would now begin the process of healing.
Her husband was found guilty by a jury of 11 counts of sexually assault by ‘penetrating her vagina with various objects’.
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 wife was unconscious and unable to give her consent when her husband carried out the rapes.
A 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 The Garda Síochána. 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 taken of her when she was drunk.
The woman said her husband had threatened to send the 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 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.
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