Judge lashes 'self serving' claims
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DANNY Foley is a son. He is a brother. He is a fiancé and he is a popular local man. Therefore, it is understandable that many believe he could not be a sex offender.
However, the popular bouncer from Meen in Listowel is a convicted sex offender and was sentenced to seven years in prison for good reason.
That reason, according to trial judge Donagh McDonagh, was because he had spun 'a web of lies' in his detailing of events on June 15, 2008, and set out to 'demean and denigrate his victim in the eyes of the public.'
In summing up the case before sentencing at Tralee Circuit Court on Wednesday last, Judge McDonagh said he had reviewed the evidence three times and, having done so, was in no doubt that the victim did not want or request intercourse with the accused. Although agreeing that the victim's memory of events was vague, he said that 'out of the uncertainty, a number of elements were clear.'
One, he said, was that she didn't want to be at the car park. Another, was that she was adamant she didn't want to go somewhere private, as the accused alleged, and thirdly, that she did not want sexual intercourse.
"What is most telling is that she recalls saying [to Mr Foley] to get off and saying no," he said. "There is no possible interpretation other than she wanted him to stop. It was a clear statement that there was not consent," he said.
Judge McDonagh said that Mr Foley's web of lies began as soon as the gardaí came upon him and his victim in the car park, when he told them he 'found yer wan' lying there and did not know who she was.
Judge McDonagh was highly critical of Mr Foley's explanation of how the night unfolded, and criticised in particular the 'revolting' and 'odious' language he used in describing what happened.
"It seems as though the accused wishes to humiliate the victim and demean and denigrate her in the eyes of the public," said Judge McDonagh who also described as 'self serving in the extreme' Mr Foley's claim that the woman had consented to the sexual encounter.
"It is clear from the evidence that from when they left [the nightclub] she was in some difficulty and got worse over time. I am of the firm view that nobody in the victim's condition could consent to anything and to suggest otherwise is self serving in the extreme. No reasonable man could believe a woman in that condition could consent to a sexual encounter of any kind," the judge said.
He also criticised Mr Foley for showing little remorse and for offering no apology of any kind.
Judge McDonagh praised the woman's 'remarkable dignity' in delivering her victim impact statement, before sentencing Foley to seven years in prison, suspending the last two. He added that having a previous clean record, in the case of Mr Foley, is 'not an accolade one can bestow upon oneself.'
