A 39-year-old Co Offaly man has been jailed for 14-and-a-half years for coercively controlling, raping, assaulting and falsely imprisoning his former partner.
Barry Murphy, of Shamrock House, Grogan, Ballycumber, was found guilty by a jury of three counts of raping his partner, Lisa O'Meara.
The jury also found him guilty of coercively control, assaulting her, sexually assaulting her and falsely imprisoning her.
Outside court, Ms O'Meara urged other women in abusive relationships to "just leave" as she said "it doesn't get better".
The Central Criminal Court heard the offences took place between February 2018 and July 2020 and left Ms O'Meara with injuries including a fractured eye socket and broken nose.
Gardaí called to the house in January 2020 after receiving information expressing concern for Ms O’Meara’s safety.
Entrances to the house were blocked and Ms O'Meara had been brought away from the scene in a vehicle. Gardaí triangulated the location of Murphy's phone and found Ms O'Meara after 24 hours with extensive physical injuries.
She gave a statement to gardaí which was videotaped. However she subsequently returned to the relationship and on one occasion was driven to the garda station by Murphy to withdraw her previous statement.
She finally left in July 2020, waiting until Murphy had fallen asleep before escaping in a taxi. She told gardaí she had no control over her life and Murphy would lock the back door and take the key.
Content warning: Image detailing injury below
In her victim impact statement Ms O'Meara said she had been a happy and carefree young woman with a great life but Murphy had taken over control of her life and broken her down piece by piece until she felt worthless and had no confidence.
She said she kept asking herself why Murphy would do this to her if he really loved her but she said she knew she would never get the true answer. She said she was completely traumatised and has been left suffering flashbacks and PTSD.
But she told Murphy she was proud of herself for being in court. She told him he thought he was untouchable and she would be forever under his control but she was now looking forward to a bright future for her and her children.
Prosecuting counsel Tim O'Leary said the DPP had instructed that the case fell into the highest category of such offences.
Defence counsel John Peart said his client did not accept the jury's verdict and was not of the view that he was guilty. He said this was "a domestic situation that got out of hand".
Mr Justice Kerida Naidoo sentenced him to 15-and-a-half years and suspended the final year for a period of two years.
Ms O'Meara said she was glad she got justice for herself. She said this was the best thing to come out of an awful situation. She said she hoped women in a similar situation would take from this that they too could get out of an abusive relationship and get justice for themselves.
She told women "don’t be afraid, just leave."
Ms O'Meara said "you have to leave, don’t stay, because it doesn’t get better, it just gets worse and worse".
She also urged other women not to be afraid and to speak up .
Ms O'Meara said she was happy justice had been served and said she had been silenced for too long.
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