A woman who was raped, stabbed and beaten by a stranger who climbed in her bedroom window as she slept in her Tralee apartment, warned the man was a “danger to society.”
Edmund O'Sullivan (32) was today jailed for 15 years with a post release supervision order of eight years after Mr Justice Paul McDermott said “the overall supervision of this man must be closely monitored.”
“It is necessary to protect others in society having regard for the dangerous and escalating nature of his offending,” the judge said.
O’Sullivan had been released just ten days prior to this incident from a three-year sentence with the final six months suspended for the stabbing of another woman in her apartment in 2022. He has 108 previous convictions, four of which are for assaults on women.
Mr Justice McDermott noted that partly suspended sentences previously failed to ensure any change in O’Sullivan’s behaviour and said it was of vital importance that he is not left at large and unsupervised in society which could lead to exposing “some future victim to a similar occurrence”.
He said it was hugely important that “these matters are addressed by those who have his custody to offer some measure of protection against further violence, particularly against women.”
O’Sullivan (32) of no fixed abode, and originally from Cork pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to rape, anal rape and making threats to kill or cause serious harm to the woman at her apartment in Tralee, County Kerry on March 14, 2024.
He was sleeping rough in Tralee having been released from prison ten days earlier.
In her victim impact statement the young woman, who was described in court as exceptionally traumatised, outlined how she continues to fight to rebuild her life but part of her has been irrevocably changed.
“I did nothing to deserve this, but I was left bloodied, broken and violated,” she told the court.
She said she does not believe for one minute that O’Sullivan regrets his actions and is only sorry he was caught. She said she cannot stress enough that O’Sullivan is “a danger to society”.
The woman said she prays that justice is served not just for herself but for the safety of other women he might seek to harm.
Mr Justice McDermott said O’Sullivan’s history of violence towards women was worrying.
He said the cycle of drug use, crime, prison time and then being released back into society without accommodation continued for O’Sullivan – which led to “devastating consequences for his latest victim”.
The judge noted from the woman’s victim impact statement that she “believed with every fibre in her being that if she had not fought back she would not be here today but she said the cost of surviving has been immense”.
He noted that she said that everything she had worked so hard to achieve was “stolen from her in an instant”
“It was the most awful attack and she suffers the most awful consequences from that,” Mr Justice McDermott said before he added that “her sense of her own personal security and wellbeing” has been impacted.
“She was sleeping and he attacked her in the most savage and degrading way and attacked her in order to secure her submission. She feared for her life,” Mr Justice McDermott said.
He acknowledged that O’Sullivan had pleaded guilty and acknowledged that he had saved the woman the trauma of sitting through a trial but added that there had been “a very strong case” against him.
Mr Justice McDermott accepted that O’Sullivan had written a letter of remorse.
He set a headline sentence of 23 years before he imposed a sentence of 16 years.
He suspended the final year on strict conditions including that O’Sullivan address both his drug and alcohol addiction while in custody and continue with any treatment deemed appropriate by the Probation Service on his release from prison. The judge noted that O’Sullivan is now a registered sex offender.
Detective Sergeant Tom Burke told Carl Hanahoe SC, prosecuting, that O’Sullivan was released from Wheatfield Prison on March 4, 2024 and over the next few days travelled to the south-west of the country until he arrived in Tralee where he slept rough.
Det Sgt Burke said the gardai were able to trace his movements on March 13 and 14, 2024 via good quality CCTV footage from the buses he travelled on and locations around the town.
The injured party was asleep in her ground floor apartment when O’Sullivan scaled a gate at 8.37am to reach a secure area outside where bikes were stored. The woman’s ground floor window opened onto this area which was considered a safe space.
O’Sullivan was seen moving around this area for about 20 minutes looking into windows. He stopped at the woman’s window, which was one of three which were ajar, and pulled it open, before climbing inside. He was recorded entering her bedroom at 8.57am.
The young woman woke at 9am to find O’Sullivan on top of her with a scissors to her throat. The scissors had been taken from the top of her bedroom locker.
O’Sullivan threatened to kill her if she did not have sex with him and struck her about the head and face. He began beating her immediately despite the women putting up no resistance.
The woman cried out for help and O’Sullivan stabbed her repeatedly to her face, head and arm. She also sustained puncture wounds to her hands. O’Sullivan again held the scissors to her throat.
The woman asked him not to kill her and gave in to his demands as she believed she would die otherwise.
O’Sullivan raped her vaginally, then anally and continued to strike her about the face and head.
At this point, the woman began to resist and grabbed the scissors, which broke in half. She held onto one part of the scissors and the other half flew across the room.
O’Sullivan then desisted and sat in a chair in the room. He had a cigarette and drank from a bottle of vodka. He wrote what appeared to be a suicide note, said he was going to kill himself and took the flex of an iron with him as he left out the woman’s window at 9.35am.
O’Sullivan had been in the apartment for 38 minutes. His subsequent movements were captured on CCTV as he walked through the town, acquired alcohol and took off his blood-stained t-shirt.
The woman fled the apartment bleeding profusely and encountered a passerby who rang gardai and an ambulance attended. A semen sample matching the accused was found on the woman on examination. Both her and O’Sullivan’s blood was found on the scissors.
O’Sullivan was arrested just before 1pm. He told gardai he did not remember anything and said: “If you say I did those things I am very sorry, I hope everyone is ok.”
The garda agreed with Brendan Grehan SC, defending, that since O’Sullivan was 18 year old he had spent three-quarters of his time serving sentences. The garda agreed he did not bring a weapon into the apartment with him but took advantage of the scissors he found there.
In her victim impact statement, the young woman outlined how she had fought for her life after awaking to find a scissors at her neck and a man shouting at her to have sex. She said the image was burned into her mind and plays over in her head.
She said the scars she has been left with are a constant reminder of how close she came to dying.
She said she was left bloodied and broken and her recovery has been a nightmare. She described how she suffered overwhelming self-hatred and was left feeling dirty and worthless.
She described how she had to leave her apartment and normal things continue to trigger intense fear. She thanked the gardai and those who have supported her.
The Director of Public Prosecutions has placed the headline sentence for this case as falling in the 15 years to life imprisonment category.
Mr Grehan said O’Sullivan accepted responsibility for the offending but did not recall detail.
He said O’Sullivan had been released from prison ten day prior to this offence without any “scaffolding” in place for his reintegration to society.
O’Sullivan has been assessed as at high risk of sexual reoffending and very high risk of violent offending. This is his first conviction for sexual offences.
He said O’Sullivan’s parents died in unfortunate circumstances, he has no siblings and spent time in state care. He spent the majority of his young life homeless and has chronic addiction issues.
He is currently on a methadone maintenance programme and engaging with services in custody.
Mr Grehan said it would be of benefit to O’Sullivan – and the whole of society – for a support system to be put in place and for him not to be simply released at the end of his sentence.
O’Sullivan wrote a letter to the judge outlining that he was “very sorry” and “so ashamed.” He said he wished he could take back what he had done.