Suspended sentence for man convicted of sex assault

A 29-year-old Williamstown man who sexually assaulted a woman as she slept in a friend’s house, has been given a suspended two-year sentence and placed under probation supervision for a year by a Circuit Court judge who believes he has suitably rehabilitated himself and now poses a low risk of reoffending.

Brian Finnegan, from Kilsallagh, Williamstown, went to his parish priest to look for guidance shortly after he sexually assaulted the then-22-year-old woman while he was a guest in a house at University Road in Galway city, on October 15, 2017.

He was subsequently questioned by Garda Vicky Duggan and admitted to her he had ‘tried it on’ with the victim who was alone in the bedroom.

The DPP had directed the charge could be dealt with at District Court level if Finnegan entered a guilty plea, but he pleaded not guilty when the matter came before Galway District Court in 2018 and was sent forward for trial to the higher court.

He changed his plea to guilty in the Circuit Court in October 2019, and sentence was adjourned to February 2020 for the preparation of a victim impact statement and for a probation report on Finnegan.

Garda Vicky Duggan told the sentence hearing then that the young woman had returned to her friend’s house following a girl’s night out and had gone to sleep in her friend’s bed alone.

She woke up during the night to find Finnegan on top of her. She tried to push him off and get up, but he pushed her back onto the bed before sexually assaulting her.

She shouted for help when she saw Finnegan attempting to take off his boxer shorts and managed to push him off her as her friend came into the room to assist her.  Finnegan was told to leave the house immediately afterwards.

He was subsequently interviewed by Garda Duggan who told the court: “He admitted he didn’t know the woman, and had ‘tried it on’ but nothing else happened.”

The woman became upset at times while reading her victim impact statement to the court.

“He took advantage of me.  I woke up to the horror of him trying to undress me against my own free will.  I was living a nightmare, I cried so much that night,” she said.

The incident had left her feeling angry, sad, lonely and sick, she said. She felt she had become a burden to her family and boyfriend and she was always fearful that people would judge her if they knew she had been sexually assaulted.

“I get angry and sad when I hear the words ‘sexual assault’ and ‘rape’,” she sobbed.

Defence barrister, Michael Clancy, apologised to the woman on behalf of his client.

“He was so distraught about this that before telling his family, he went to his parish priest and he gave him guidance on how to deal with this in the appropriate manner,” Mr Clancy said.

A letter from his employer at a Roscommon meat factory along with a “glowing tribute” from his former football club, and a letter from the parish priest were also handed into court.

Judge Rory McCabe said this had been a reckless and unsolicited attempt by the accused to engage in sexual contact with an innocent victim who woke to find him on top of her.

Noting Finnegan had been automatically placed on the Sex Offenders’ Register following his guilty plea, the judge said that while that was a significant penalty in itself, it was justified due to Finnegan’s ‘grossly offensive conduct’.

He placed the headline sentence – before aggravating and mitigating circumstances were taken into account – at three years but adjourned finalisation of sentence to last week’s court to allow the Probation Service complete a full risk assessment of the accused.

Reports outlining Finnegan’s compliance with the Service and his successful rehabilitation to date were handed into court last week.

The risk assessment stated he had been at moderate risk of reoffending  for sexual offences up to last year but that risk was now reduced to ‘low’ as he was doing courses around the issue of consent and sexual assault and had also stopped drinking, taking drugs and had begun to save and not get into debt any more. The Service offered to supervise Finnegan for a further twelve months if the court so wished.

Judge McCabe said the interests of justice would not be served by the imposition of a custodial sentence. He imposed the two-year sentence, suspended for five years and placed Finnegan under the supervision of the Probation Service for the next twelve months.