08/04/2008

Twelve Years For Rapist

A man has been given 12 years for raping two teenage girls who were babysitting for a friend.

George Keyes, 39, of Waterfront Apartments, Portarlinton, Co Laois, had taken a cocktail of amphetamines, cannabis, ecstasy and alcohol.

The Central Criminal Court yesterday heard Keyes raped one girl four times and the second victim three times in a Laois town.

Mr Justice Paul Carney sentenced him to 15 years in prison for "these outrages", but suspended the final three years due to Mr Keyes' early guilty plea.

Keyes had taken the girls’ mobile phones before raping them. The court heard how, before the attack he had chillingly said: "Girls, I'm going to rape ye.”

After their ordeal, one of the girls telephoned her mother, who told them to get a taxi with the children they were baby-sitting. The girl's distraught mother then reported what had happened to the gardaí.

Keyes was arrested 24 hours later on the road near Newbridge, Co Kildare after gardaí sighted him thumbing for a lift on the side of the road.

He said he had made his way there by walking along the railway tracks.

Counsel for Keyes’ defence said: “He doesn't in any way attempt to justify what happened, which was completely out of character for him. He is extremely sorry and is very embarrassed by it."

(DW/KMcA)


Related Irish News Stories
Click here for the latest headlines.

01 September 2014
Over 42,000 Girls Receive HPV Cervical Cancer Vaccine
More than 42,000 girls have been immunised as part of the HPC vacciniation campaign, according to the HSE. The routine programme for first year girls during 2012/2013 has been well received with an uptake rate of 84% for the three vaccine doses, well above the target of 80% uptake rate.
04 December 2012
12 Years For Double Rapist
A 34-year-old man, who drugged and raped two women after luring them to his home in Dublin, has been jailed for 12 years for. Kapil Garg, a computer specialist originally from India but living in Whitefriar Place in Dublin 8, had pleaded not guilty but a jury found him guilty of the offences, which took place in his rented room in July 2011.
25 May 2012
Eight Years For Child Rapist Who Claimed Victims 'Seduced Him'
A man who admitted during counselling sessions that he had abused other children has been sentenced to eight years for the rape and sexual assault of his wife’s 13-year-old niece. The counsellor’s reports also stated that the man claimed the children he had abused “often initiated it and seduced him”.
15 May 2009
Double Rapist Given 20 Years
A 21-year-old man has been jailed for 20 years for the rape of two women. David McCartan, of Casement Road in Finglas, broke into the women's houses in 2007 and 2008 before raping and assaulting the women and burgling their houses. McCartan pleaded guilty to two charges of rape and two of burglary in May 2007 and August 2008.
21 April 2008
Baby Sitter Rapist Jailed For 11 Years
A Roscommon man has been jailed for 11 years for raping a baby-sitter over two decades ago. John Gerard Regan, 57, from Cloonfad, Ballyhaunis was found guilty by a jury at the Central Criminal Court last February of raping the now 36-year-old woman in 1982 and on three charges of indecently assaulting her in 1979 and 1984.