A 54-year-old healthcare assistant convicted of sexually assaulting a patient has been jailed for two years and nine months.
Raymond Marmion, with an address at Nicholas Street, Dundalk, was working at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda, Co Louth, at the time of the offence in 2019.
He was sentenced by Judge Sinéad McMullan at Drogheda Circuit Court today, having previously been found guilty by a jury.
The court previously heard that the male victim in the case was an in-patient in the hospital.
The victim said that in the early hours of the morning, he awoke to find a person holding the waistband of his boxer shorts away from his body and stroking him.
He said the person was holding a pen-light.
When he asked the person what they were doing, the accused man said he was checking his chest drain.
The victim then went to the bathroom and locked the door, where they rang a friend, who told him to contact gardaí.
The court heard that when the garda investigation commenced, the healthcare worker was arrested by arrangement and made admissions that he was working on the night in questions.
CCTV footage from the hospital on the night the offence took place showed that he had been in the victim's room for four minutes.
Marmion had told gardaí that he was there to check the patient's chest drain.
Summarising the evidence, Judge McMullan said that he had no previous convictions and had an unblemished work record.
She said that there was clearly harm caused to the victim and that what happened would have been distressing for him.
She said that it was not touching of a long duration, and that the defendant stopped when the victim awoke.
Judge McMullan said it was "opportunistic" and the most aggravating factor is the breach of trust, in which the defendant was involved in the care of a patient.
She said she put this offending at the lower end of the mid-range of the scale of offending.
The judge said that the defendant does not accept the verdict of the jury so she could not factor remorse into his mitigation.
She took account of his cooperation with gardaí, good work record, testimonials handed into the court, and family situation.
Judge McMullan said that while it was accepted Marmion had an exemplary work record, she cannot lose sight of the fact that the offending took place at work.
She also took account of the loss of his job and future employment prospects.
Marmion was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison.
