COURT FINDS ROMANIAN RAPIST HAD JAIL TERM REDUCED ‘EXCESSIVELY’ AS HE DIDN’T SPEAK ENGLISH
VERY HIGH-RISK OF RE-OFFENDING
The Court of Appeal has found that a “high-risk sex offender” from Romania who raped a woman with a mild intellectual disability three times received an “excessive” reduction in his jail term – with the discount given in his sentencing because he could not speak English and would therefore find prison more difficult.
The Court found “the discount he received for being a non-English speaker in an Irish prison was “excessive”,” Court News Ireland
reported.
The original jail sentence of 6.5 years was squashed and substituted with a sentence of 10 years’ in prison, with the last year-and-a-half suspended.
Mr Justice George Birmingham, returning the judgment, said that it was surprising that the trial judge placed “little emphasis” on the fact that the man found guilty of rape, Costel Pirvu, also had a previous conviction for attempted rape.
The judge said that a probation report showed that Pirvu had a “very disturbing” attitude towards his victim – and that he displayed no remorse or empathy.
The report also revealed that on occasion the rapist took a derogatory view of the victim.
It also concluded that the Romanian national was “at a very high risk of sexual offending in the next 12 months”.
Costel Pirvu repeatedly raped the woman, aged 19 at the time, after grabbing her on the street in a town in the west of Ireland when she was coming home from a night out with friends.
The woman was firstly raped by Pirvu after he forced her to the ground even as she struggled to escape, causing scrapes and bruises to her arms, legs and back.
He then forced her to go back to his apartment, where he raped the terrified teenager a further two times, only letting her go the next morning when a friend of his came in.
A report from the Sexual Assault and Treatment Unit showed that the young woman had sustained a 2mm laceration to her urethra as well as bruises and scrapes to her face, back, breasts, arms, legs and genital area.
Pirvu was sentenced to 10 year imprisonment but the final three and a half years was suspended, although the accused had a history of violent offending, including convictions for robbery and attempted rape.
Court News Ireland reported that lawyers for the Director of Public Prosecutions argued before the Court of Appeal that Pirvu unduly benefited in mitigation because the trial judge had factored in his status as a foreign national with no English, which would make prison life more difficult for him.
Counsel representing the DPP argued that the trial judge said every day in prison for Pirvu would be like a day and a half for an English-speaking person, which led to an “extremely high” discount being given to the Romanian national.
In sentencing Pirvu, the judge “came up with a formula that it would be 50 per cent more severe for him than a local”, the DPP’s office said.
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