victim impact statement<\/a> which was read out by counsel, Ms Gallagher said her home town was a place of \u201ccomfort, safety, sanctuary\u201d. \u201cI never imagined something so horrific could happen to me here,\u201d she said.<\/p>\nShe thought she was going to be killed that night and felt dirty and violated in the wake of the attack. \u201cBefore the rape I was a carefree person,\u201d she said. \u201cI would potter to the shops and walk to mass.\u201d Now she is fearful and no longer feels safe in her home, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy independence is gone because of this rape,\u201d she said, adding her mobility issues have worsened and her body has deteriorated.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter a long period of contemplation, I have chosen to forgive,\u201d she said. \u201cI feel I need to do this for myself, to heal and let go of the hurt and pain.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she survived that \u201chorrific night\u201d with God’s help and she was in court to ensure Kelly \u201cdoesn’t get the opportunity to harm anyone else\u201d.<\/p>\n
Passing sentence, Ms Justice Melanie Greally said Kelly was aware of Ms Gallagher’s vulnerability when he carried out the pre-meditated attack.<\/p>\n
She said it was clear Ms Gallagher was a woman of great faith. \u201cConsistent with that faith, she has remarkably and admirably chosen to forgive Mr Kelly for his actions.\u201d<\/p>\n
When a letter of apology by Kelly was made known to her, she responded: \u201cThat’s nice\u201d, the court heard.<\/p>\n
Ms Justice Greally said that in a case as serious of this, the sentence must be punitive. She set a headline sentence of 18 years, which she reduce to 14 and a half years taking mitigating factors into account.<\/p>\n
She suspended the final 18 months of that sentence on a number of conditions.<\/p>\n
On the day in question, the court heard Ms Gallagher had been brought to her local social club by bus, had visited her optician and had a home help visit her for an hour in the evening.<\/p>\n
Around 1am, she went upstairs to bed via her stairlift, before she decided to go back downstairs to make sure she had locked the door. She then heard a knock on her front door and opened it, expecting it to be one of her neighbours in need of something.<\/p>\n
Instead a masked man \u2013 the defendant \u2013 walked in the door and locked it behind him. He then put his hand over her mouth and pulled her over the couch, pulling at her clothes. He attempted to rape her but told her, \u201cIt’s not going in\u201d, before he orally raped her.<\/p>\n
Ms Gallagher was \u201cfrightened out of her wits\u201d and could not fight against the man, who she described as strong.<\/p>\n
As she pleaded with him to stop, he held her around the neck and told her: \u201cI’m going to choke you.\u201d He then anally raped her before telling her to give him some money. She managed to get her handbag and hand him a \u20ac20 and \u20ac5 note from her purse before he walked out of the house.<\/p>\n
She rang her local garda station and garda\u00ed were immediately dispatched to her house, where they found her in a distressed state with a visible strangulation mark on her neck. She was taken to a sexual assault treatment unit where multiple bruising to her body was documented.<\/p>\n
A garda investigation was launched and CCTV footage from the area showed Kelly loitering in the area in the early hours of the morning and looking in Ms Gallagher’s window. He was identified from the footage as a neighbour, arrested and interviewed.<\/p>\n
He said he had no recollection of anything that night as he was on cocaine. He said he knew Ms Gallagher for that last 15 years, that he had previously helped her with her shopping and he thought she was in her 80s. He described her as \u201cfriendly and nice\u201d.<\/p>\n
He described the actions attributed to him as that of an \u201canimal\u201d but maintained he had no recollection of them.<\/p>\n
Ms Gallagher said she had no recollection of Kelly ever helping her with her shopping.<\/p>\n
In his plea of mitigation, Michael Bowman SC, defending, said Kelly had written a letter of apology in which he expressed his \u201cgreat shame and regret\u201d for his actions that night.<\/p>\n
Defence counsel said Kelly had a long history of alcohol and drug addiction and at one point, was taking 20 Solpadeine tablets a day. A Probation Service report found he requires intervention for sexual preoccupation, impulsivity and drug abuse. It found him at a medium risk of re-offending.<\/p>\n
He comes from a stable family background and has two children from a previous relationship. He is doing well in custody, the court heard.<\/p>\n
Subscribe to our newsletter for the latest news from the Irish Mirror direct to your inbox: <\/strong>Sign up here.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The complainant, Anne Gallagher, has chronic health issues including arthritis and requires mobility aids which Kelly was aware…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,27,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-305463","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-courts","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115964923336389309","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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