"I thought I might get killed" - Woman is attacked in apartment
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A Waterford man attacked a woman in an apartment during an incident that occurred in recent weeks.
The victim provided evidence of the incident before a judge in Waterford Courthouse last week.
She said that on June 27, she arrived at her boyfriend’s apartment in Tramore.
Once there, she noticed that he was “very drunk.”
An argument broke out, and the woman decided to leave. She went into another room to pack a suitcase with her belongings.
As she was doing so, the man was shouting and aggressive.
She claimed that he made a threat that he was going to kill her, pushed her onto a bed and grabbed her neck.
The woman started screaming loudly, and the man placed his hand over her mouth.
The woman alleged that the man took her suitcase and threw it outside, leaving her clothes scattered on the pavement.
The woman left the apartment and contacted gardaí.
The garda officer in charge that evening told the court that the woman was visibly distressed when she arrived at the station.
“I thought I might get killed that day,” the woman said from the witness stand.
Gardaí later attended the man’s apartment; however, he wasn’t there.
In his own evidence to the court, the man denied all allegations against him.
“It’s not true whatsoever, I would never harm a woman,” he said.
He denied claims by gardaí that he went into hiding after the incident. He said the reason he wasn’t in his apartment when gardaí attended was because he had gone to a nearby takeaway to get food.
Judge Kevin Staunton then weighed up the conflicting evidence of both parties.
He described the woman as an “exceptionally credible witness”.
“There’s no doubt she has not invented an untruthful scenario,” he said.
Judge Staunton acknowledged that it was difficult to know how to sentence the man, taking into consideration the history between the two parties.
He convicted and sentenced the man to 18 months imprisonment, suspended for eighteen months.
