Connacht Tribune
Singer and actor Garrett Phillips to be sentenced in July for oral rape
Galway singer and actor Garrett Phillips will be sentenced in July for orally raping a young woman who had fallen asleep in his van while he gave her a lift home from a night out in Galway.
Phillips (46) had pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court last month to one charge of orally raping the then 20-year-old woman at a Galway location in the early hours of November 5, 2015.
Reporting restrictions in the case, which prevented Phillips being named, were lifted by Ms Justice Eileen Creedon, despite attempts by him to have them kept in place.
The case has been adjourned until July to allow for the preparation of a probation report.
Phillips is well-known for impersonating Frank Sinatra in a ‘Rat Pack’ show which finished up in London’s West End and Dublin last month, and for his former role in Ros na Rún.
During the trial, the victim told the jury that she accepted the lift from Phillips after first encountering him with his dog while she sat alone and upset in a park.
She said she fell asleep on the journey and woke up to find her assailant standing up in the van opposite her with his right leg on the seat beside her and his penis in her mouth.
The woman told the jury she memorised the van’s registration plate as he sped off and then ran to the nearest house repeating this number out loud.
Phillips claimed in his Garda interview that he had driven out to a vantage point on the outskirts of the city at the woman’s suggestion.
He said their faces “kind of met” while they stopped to look at a view of the city lights and that it was a consensual encounter which had started off “very tender” and felt “chemical”.
He then claimed that his victim gave him oral sex for a few seconds before she stated: “I’ve a boyfriend”.
He claimed she put her head back, became unresponsive and then sprang upright in anger. The court heard the man has no previous convictions.
The jury of eight men and four women took four hours and 15 minutes to return their majority 11-1 verdict.
Ms Justice Eileen Creedon thanked the jury members for their time and attention to the case and exempted them from further duty for seven years.
She directed Phillips be registered as a sex offender and remanded him on continuing bail until his sentence date in May. Sentencing is now adjourned until July.
The young woman told the jury that she awoke to find Phillips “thrusting” his penis into her mouth after falling asleep while he gave her a lift home.
She said she had accepted the lift after encountering him as she was sitting alone and upset in a park from various stressors in her life.
She said they had a conversation and she later got into his van, before falling asleep after seeing a hotel on the route and hearing him say something about an overview of the city lights.
The woman told Paul Burns SC, prosecuting, that she next recalled the man standing up in the van opposite her with his right leg on the seat beside her and his penis in her mouth.
“He was thrusting his penis into my mouth”, she told the jury.
She described “crying hysterically and screaming”, retrieving her phone from him and running around to the back of the van where she memorised the number plate.
She said she ran to a nearby house “and just started ringing the doorbell and knocking on the door, just kept saying the number plate.” She said the family in this house rang the Gardaí.
The woman denied when Barry White SC, defending, suggested that she had put her arm around his client while on the park bench.
She said it was “not true” that she and the man kissed passionately at the view location and that she had performed consensual oral sex on him.
She further denied repeating “I’ve a boyfriend”, becoming unresponsive in the van and then springing “bolt upright” in anger.
Another witness told the court that she and her parents opened their front door to the woman, who was crying with “makeup all down her face”.
The witness said she noticed the complainant’s zip had been fully down on her jeans, while the top button was done. She said the complainant was repeating a vehicle’s registration when she first came into the house.
A local garda described taking photos and measurements of the seized van and listed various cabin measurements, including the distance from the passenger seat’s edge to the dashboard.
He agreed with Mr White that he did not seek assistance from colleagues sitting in to see how far a person’s legs would come out from the seat.
Phillips told gardaí during a voluntary interview that the woman had indicated to him that he could drive towards a vantage point of the city during the lift to her home. He claimed to Gardaí that they had a passionate kiss here before he pulled his van about 20 metres into a nearby housing estate and they continued with “heavy petting”.
He said the woman gave him oral sex for a few seconds before she started repeating: “I’ve a boyfriend”.
He said she put her head back, “seemed suddenly out of it” and unresponsive and then sprang upright. The man claimed the woman shouted at him to get away from her, she demanded her phone and wanted him to drive her to a Garda station.
A detective told Mr Burns that the man said he drove off feeling “panicky” when the woman got out of his van. He described how he had felt like a “Good Samaritan” by approaching her as she sat alone audibly crying on a park bench.
When Gardaí asked him to explain why a woman 20 years younger would perform oral sex on him, he replied that “it was more sensual” and that it “felt chemical” between them.
Significant state investment is required to address ‘shocking’ inequalities that leave cancer patients in the West at greater risk of succumbing to the disease.
A meeting of Regional Health Forum West heard that survival rates for breast, lung and colorectal cancers than the national average, and with the most deprived quintile of the population, the West’s residents faced poorer outcomes from a cancer diagnosis.
For breast cancer patients, the five-year survival rate was 80% in the West versus 85% nationally; for lung cancer patients it was 16.7% in the west against a 19.5% national survival rate; and in the West’s colorectal cancer patients, there was a 62.6% survival rate where the national average was 63.1%.
These startling statistics were provided in answer to a question from Ballinasloe-based Cllr Evelyn Parsons (Ind) who said it was yet another reminder that cancer treatment infrastructure in the West was in dire need of improvement.
“The situation is pretty stark. In the Western Regional Health Forum area, we have the highest incidence of deprivation and the highest health inequalities because of that – we have the highest incidences of cancer nationally because of that,” said Cllr Parsons, who is also a general practitioner.
In details provided by CEO of Saolta Health Care Group, which operates Galway’s hospitals, it was stated that a number of factors were impacting on patient outcomes.
Get the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.
Galway 3-18
Cork 1-10
NEW setting; new opposition; new challenge. It made no difference to the Galway minor hurlers as they chalked up a remarkable sixth consecutive double digits championship victory at Semple Stadium on Saturday.
The final scoreline in Thurles may have been a little harsh on Cork, but there was no doubting Galway’s overall superiority in setting up only a second-ever All-Ireland showdown against Clare at the same venue on Sunday week.
Having claimed an historic Leinster title the previous weekend, Galway took a while to get going against the Rebels and also endured their first period in a match in which they were heavily outscored, but still the boys in maroon roll on.
Beating a decent Cork outfit by 14 points sums up how formidable Galway are. No team has managed to lay a glove on them so far, and though Clare might ask them questions other challengers haven’t, they are going to have to find significant improvement on their semi-final win over 14-man Kilkenny to pull off a final upset.
Galway just aren’t winning their matches; they are overpowering the teams which have stood in their way. Their level of consistency is admirable for young players starting off on the inter-county journey, while the team’s temperament appears to be bombproof, no matter what is thrown at them.
Having romped through Leinster, Galway should have been a bit rattled by being only level (0-4 each) after 20 minutes and being a little fortunate not to have been behind; or when Cork stormed out of the blocks at the start of the second half by hitting 1-4 to just a solitary point in reply, but there was never any trace of panic in their ranks.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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GARDAÍ and the IFA have issued a joint appeal to all road users to take extra care as the silage season gets under way across the country.
Silage harvesting started in many parts of Galway last week – and over the coming month, the sight of tractors and trailers on rural roads will be getting far more frequent.
Inspector Conor Madden, who is in charge of Galway Roads Policing, told the Farming Tribune that a bit of extra care and common-sense from all road users would go a long way towards preventing serious collisions on roads this summer.
“One thing I would ask farmers and contractors to consider is to try and get more experienced drivers working for them.
“Tractors have got faster and bigger – and they are also towing heavy loads of silage – so care and experience are a great help in terms of accident prevention,” Inspector Madden told the Farming Tribune.
He said that tractor drivers should always be aware of traffic building up behind them and to pull in and let these vehicles pass, where it was safe to do so.
“By the same token, other road users should always exercise extra care; drive that bit slower; and ‘pull in’ that bit more, when meeting tractors and heavy machinery.
“We all want to see everyone enjoying a safe summer on our roads – that extra bit of care, and consideration for other roads users can make a huge difference,” said Conor Madden.
He also advised motorists and tractor drivers to be acutely aware of pedestrians and cyclists on the roads during the summer season when more people would be out walking and cycling on the roads.
The IFA has also joined in on the road safety appeal with Galway IFA Farm Family and Social Affairs Chair Teresa Roche asking all road users to exercise that extra bit of care and caution.
“We are renewing our annual appeal for motorists to be on the look out for tractors, trailers and other agricultural machinery exiting from fields and farmyards,” she said.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Families queue up for school’s offer of free house
West has lower cancer survival rates than rest
Galway minors continue to lay waste to all opponents
Gardaí and IFA issue a joint appeal on summer road safety
Marathon Man plans to call a halt – but not before he hits 160 races
