A language student who was sexually assaulted by a serial sex offender has told how her dream of living in Ireland and learning English was shattered after she was attacked by Patrick Nevin.
The Dublin Circuit Criminal Court was told that Nevin - who has admitted attacking two other women he met using the Tinder dating app - still denies the assault on the Brazilian student.
Last November the 36-year-old was convicted of sexual assault after an eight-day trial.
His sentencing hearing was adjourned until Tuesday.
Nevin has been in custody since last November but has former addresses at Meadowlands Court, Mounttown Road, Dún Laoghaire and Dundalk, Co Louth.
The jury heard he had subjected the woman to a frightening and violent sexual assault after taking her to a secluded part of the UCD complex in July 2014.
The woman told gardaí he had "turned into a monster" before sexually assaulting her.
She had been in communication with him for some weeks having made contact on the Tinder app before agreeing to meet him for coffee.
She said she was using the app to learn to speak English after coming to Ireland to attend a language school.
Nevin drove her to a secluded location at UCD where he became aggressive and assaulted her. During a struggle he hit her on the back of the head and she also suffered injuries to her knee and shoulder. She escaped from his car and was helped to a taxi by a woman who was walking nearby.
In her victim impact statement read to the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court today, the woman said initially she blamed herself for the assault and still finds it hard to speak about it now with family and friends.
She said she was still afraid of people's judgement and still struggles "to believe a man can be kind".
"I am afraid of violent reactions," she said, adding that certain things bring back memories of the assault.
She fought back tears in the witness box as she described how she had saved for years to be able to travel to Ireland and had hoped to learn the language.
After the attack she had difficulty securing a job in childcare and instead worked as a cleaner where she could work alone and did not have the opportunity to speak to people and learn the language properly.
She returned to Brazil without any money and without having achieved her goal of learning English, she said.
Attending the eight-day trial last year made her fearful all over again and brought back the day "he became a monster in front of me".
She found it hard to eat and sleep throughout the trial. However she said after the jury found him guilty her "hurt settled a bit" and the fact that he would not be able to do it to another woman made her "feel good".
Defence counsel Patrick McGrath told Judge Cormac Quinn that his client still maintains his innocence in relation to this so there was a limit to what he could say.
He asked the judge to consider the nature of the assault which he said amounted to "forcible kissing, unwanted touching of her thigh and pulling down the top of her dress".
A medical report presented to the court said she had suffered soft tissue injuries to her knee, shoulder and the back of her head after Nevin had hit her on the head during the struggle.
Mr McGrath said Nevin has used his time in prison to attain an education and had achieved a degree in software engineering from UCD which enabled him to get employment.
The court heard that Nevin has a number of previous convictions including road traffic offences and possession of a stun gun. He was under a suspended sentence for this when the sex attacks occurred.
He was also sentenced to seven years in jail for a brutal assault on his partner in 2001 after he killed her dogs.
He is due to be sentenced next month in the Central Criminal Court for raping one woman and sexually assaulting another.
These attacks took place a week before the sexual assault on the Brazilian student.
Judge Quinn will impose sentence for that offence next Tuesday.
