Gardai launch manhunt amid fears rapist 'accidently released' from prison instead of being deported
Exclusive - The Irish Mirror has learned that 50 year old, who had just served a sentence for rape, was released from Cloverhill prison today - despite there being a deportation order for him.
An investigation has been launched this evening over whether a rapist was accidentally released - when he was supposed to be deported.
The Irish Mirror has learned that 50 year old, who had just served a sentence for rape, was released from Cloverhill prison today - despite there being a deportation order for him.
Sources say prison bosses are scrambling for answers after the rapist, who was on remand in relation to the deportation order, was allowed to walk out the door of the prison.
Sources say a major investigation has now been launched over whether the rapist, who was originally from Albania but living in Ireland for over 20 years, was released accidentally - and a manhunt was launched.
An Irish Prison Service spokesperson declined to comment this evening, saying that it does not comment on individual prisoner cases.
However it is understood that gardai are involved and a manhunt was launched for the prisoner to be returned to custody.
It is understood that the prisoner has been located this evening and returned to custody. However there remains a major probe into exactly how he was released in the first place.
The rapist was found guilty of raping a woman who he’d agreed to meet for a coffee in a Leinster town in the summer of 2017.
During his 2022 case local garda told Eileen O’Leary SC, prosecuting that on his initial arrest the man told gardaí that he didn’t know the woman.
He later admitted in interview that he knew her but claimed he had not touched her before he said that she had initiated kissing him and took off her own clothes.
He told gardaí that the woman asked him to stop, and they did not have sex.
The garda confirmed that an examination of the woman at a sexual assault treatment unit immediately after the rape had detected semen in her body with matched that of the man's DNA.
The man’s legal team made a formal admission during the trial last December that he had sex with the woman, but it had been consensual.
The court heard that the man does not accept the verdict of the jury and has been on remand in custody since August 2019.
In a victim impact statement the woman she felt so frightened when she saw the man in court and described the trial as the most difficult time of her life apart from the rape itself.
She said in the immediate aftermath of the rape she just wanted to die. “I had asked God to let me sleep and not wake up again”.
She said she no longer wanted to live in that town, which forced her into making her family homeless and moving to live in a hotel in another town.
The woman said she was mentally unwell and her children had no idea what was wrong with her.
“I couldn’t tell them because I wanted to protect them. I worry they would have to carry the impact of my assault. I didn’t want them to feel that pain, so I have never told them what happened and will never be able to tell them,” the statement continued.
She said she cleans herself a number of times a day. She described trying to clean herself by burning her skin and going on sunbeds in attempt to do this.
“So my skin would burn away and peel off so I would have new skin,” the woman said before she continued that she would burn herself with a cigarette to stop her anxiety.
Tessa White BL defending (with Lorcan Staines SC) said at the trial her client is originally from Albania but has been living in Ireland for 20 years.
She said he had found it difficult to cope in prison as he does not have a strong support network.
She said he does not accept the verdict of the jury.
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