Galway Advertiser 2005/2005_07_14/GA_1407_E1_023.pdf 

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July 14 2005

Galway Advertiser

N E W S 23

Man found guilty of attempting to rape teen at Tuam Road
BY TOMAS MAC RUAIRI A Lithuanian national has been found guilty by jury at the Central Criminal Court of attempting to rape a then 17-year-old Galway woman two years ago. Aldas Siskevicius (23), with an address at Glenburren Park, Galway was found not guilty of raping the woman on the same occasion outside his home on June 29, 2003. Mr Justice Paul Butler remanded him in custody for mention of the case on July 26 when it is expected that a date for sentence will be set. The jury reached its verdict following almost five hours deliberation and after it had spent one night in a hotel. It was day eight of the trial in which Siskevicius denied he raped the woman. The woman had told the jury she was raped by him after she met and kissed him earlier in a taxi queue in the early hours of the morning. She then shared a taxi with Siskevicius and another man to his house to which she told the jury in her direct evidence he had invited her to a party. The now 19-year-old woman said in reply to Mr Patrick J McCarthy SC (with Mr Dominic McGinn BL), she had consumed alcohol while out with friends that night and had been standing in a long queue later waiting for a cab home. While standing there she had spoken with various people including Siskevicius and an acquaintance of his. She recalled how a young woman in the house was angry and shouting at the accused and she decided to leave to find a cab to bring her home. She said he insisted on walking out with her and then knocked her over on to her back with one hand over her mouth. She said that what occurred after that "happened so fast" she really didn't know what was taking place. His body was on top of her and she was overpowered by him. She said he pulled down her jeans and underwear with one hand and kept the other one over her mouth while she kept screaming for help by trying to wriggle her mouth away from his hand. She told the jury that she continued to try to call for help and that she thought she was dying. The woman said she opened her eyes and saw some people at the top of the road but thought they would go on their own way. However, they came towards here and one asked what had happened to her while his companion restrained Siskevicius by holding him on the ground. She said she got up to run off and realised she didn't have her jeans on. She was "in hysterics" and ran to a woman who brought her into a house nearby. "I just ran to the house," she said. The teenager said the next thing she remembered was being on the floor of a sitting room and a cup of coffee being put into her hand. A female gardai then appeared . She went to the garda station, then home and returned shortly after that to the garda station and then to a doctor. The woman told Mr McCarthy that during her struggle with Siskevicius she "grabbed his genitals but he didn't flinch." When he got off her she punched him in the face. She agreed with defence counsel, Mr Gerard Clarke SC (with Mr John Hanna BL) that some words relating to the incident had been crossed out by a single line through them in her statement to gardai. She also agreed with Mr Clarke that she wrongly told the jury in her direct evidence she had been invited to a party at Siskevicius' home. She told counsel she "assumed" she was going to a party at this house which was on the opposite direction to her own home and she was wrong to tell the jury she had been invited to a party. The teenage woman also agreed she had engaged in what Mr Clarke called "intimate kissing" with Siskevicius but denied she went to his house to engage in further sexual activity with him. She said an Irishman in the taxi queue where she had met and began kissing Siskevicius had shown concern for her and spoken to her. She had not made enquiries as to who might be at the house. They could have been going to have a chat to get to know each other better or to meet other people. She agreed with Mr Clarke that another reason for going to a house could be to become more intimate but she said this was not so in this case. Pressed by Mr Clarke as to reasons for going to what he called "a strange house in the opposite direction" to her own home with two men she met in a taxi queue, she replied: "Why not? I was 17 and finished school and liked to meet people."

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Marilyn Gaughan, Galway County Arts Officer, and Hilary Kavanagh, Artistic Director of Macteo, at the opening of the Galway Arts Festival at the Galway Bay Hotel, Salthill. Photograph: Aengus McMahon