Stalker jailed for attack on pregnant woman in Galway

A man who stalked a pregnant woman for over four kilometres as she walked to work through the city and then pulled her violently by the hair into bushes where he assaulted her, has been sentenced to four years in prison with the final year suspended.

Father of one, Trevor Gates (46), of 124 Fána Búrca , Knocknacarra, pleaded guilty last February at Galway Circuit Criminal Court to attempting to falsely imprison the woman at Tuam Road, Galway on September 12, 2013; with attempting to rob her and with seriously assaulting her.

Following his plea to those charges the State did not pursue two further charges against Gates of having a hunting knife in his possession on that date and again at Dublin Road a week later.

Detective John Lavery told the sentence hearing this week that the slightly-built 28-year-old woman, who was six-and-a-half months pregnant at the time, left her home in the Knocknacarra area at 7.05am and was walking to work in Mervue Industial Estate, a distance which normally took her one hour and 20 minutes to complete.

She was walking on the footpath, opposite the Allied Irish Bank on the Tuam Road, when she was suddenly attacked and dragged by the hair into the bushes in front of a muddy embankment, which skirts the industrial estate.

Det. Lavery said the woman was dragged through a gap in the fence by the accused.

She managed to hit him with her umbrella and he then let go of her hair. He blocked her way from getting back onto the footpath and she was forced to scramble up the muddy embankment to get away from him.

She ran the rest of the way to her work place where she reported the attack.

Det. Lavery said he trawled through CCTV footage taken from several buildings along the route the woman had taken through the city that morning and he pieced together enough footage to prove the accused, who was wearing a cap and high-visibility vest, had walked behind her while wheeling his mountain bike, for 4.2km.

“I established he had stalked her for 45 minutes at least,” Det. Lavery said.

After the attack, Gates fled on his mountain bike.

He was employed at the time as a contract cleaner and cycled to work each day to and from his home in Knocknacara to a job in Oranmore.

Det. Lavery said he got a positive identification of the accused on CCTV when he removed his cap after entering Merlin Stores to buy a paper, shortly after he had carried out the attack.

Det. Lavery said he didn’t know Gates at the time but he noticed him cycling on the dual carriageway near Oranmore five days later and followed him to his home in Knocknacarra. He was placed under surveillance and was arrested outside Merlin Stores on September 19.

Gates, he said, claimed the attack was not sexually motivated, maintaining instead that he intended to rob the woman’s handbag.

Det. Lavery said the woman suffered a very sore neck and scalp.

“He didn’t manage to pull her hair out, but it wasn’t for the lack of trying,” the detective observed.

“This was a very sinister attack. His actions could have been catastrophic because she was pregnant at the time,” Det. Lavery added.

A victim impact statement revealed the attack had a negative effect on the victim and her female co-workers who immediately changed their routes to work and still feel unsafe.

Prosecuting barrister Conor Fahy said the woman acted with great courage fighting off her attacker with her umbrella.

Det. Lavery said Gates, who comes from Craigavon in Northern Ireland, had been living with his partner and teenage daughter in Galway for twelve years.

Gates, he said, had two previous convictions in Northern Ireland for the indecent assault of two female juveniles and another conviction for robbery going back to 1988. He had another conviction recorded in 1985 for another indecent assault and attempted robbery.

Imposing sentence, Judge Rory McCabe said the woman was violently attacked.

He commended Det.Lavery for his “painstaking” investigation which helped intercept Gates.

The previous convictions in Northern Ireland were an aggravating factor, the judge noted, before sentencing Gates to four years in prison for the false imprisonment of the woman.

He imposed two concurrent three-year sentences on the accused for the assault and attempted robbery of the woman.

Judge McCabe then suspended the final year of the four-year sentence on the recommendation of a probation service report which suggested the accused would benefit from post-release supervision.

He placed Gates under the supervision of the probation service for twelve months on his release and recommended he receive assessment and counselling while serving his sentence.