A FATHER-OF-one who raped two women in his apartment after meeting them on a night out in a nightclub has been jailed for seven and a half years.
Clement Limen (45) of North Court, Quayside, Sligo town, was convicted after a trial at the Central Criminal Court of raping two women at his flat on 2 June, 2014 and one count of sexual assault.
Mr Justice Paul Coffey noted the trauma and anguish caused by Limen’s attacks on the women before he imposed a prison sentence of seven and a half years.
Garda Sergeant Martin McHale told Eileen O’Leary SC, prosecuting, that Limen invited the two women back to his apartment for a party after meeting them in a nightclub on the June bank holiday weekend in 2014.
The court heard that the women, who were aged in their 30s, saw Limen inviting others to the party and they initially fobbed him off.
He was waiting outside the nightclub and the women, who were lifelong friends, decided to travel back to his home with 10 other people he had invited from the club.
Both women recall him giving them “a very strong drink that tasted like vodka” before “going totally blank”.
One woman said she remembered waking up on a couch, feeling very disorientated while lying on her back, and then realising that Limen was raping her.
McHale said the woman then found her friend in a bedroom, lying on her back. The second woman told her friend she too had been raped by the defendant.
The women fled the apartment and rang the husband of one of the victims, who came to collect them.
“Cocktail”
During the trial, Limen denied raping either of the women, telling the court he made them “a cocktail with grenadine and vodka”.
Limen told the jury he had consensual unprotected sex with one woman, and denied having sex with the other victim.
In a victim impact statement, one woman told the court that her life had changed dramatically since that night.
“I was once carefree and fun-loving. I became introverted and racked with anxiety. I regularly wake with a jolt, thinking he is standing over me,” she said.
She said she sometimes gets up in the middle of the night to check doors and windows are locked.
“If he had pleaded guilty and apologised, I could have forgiven him,” she said.
But he taunted us at every opportunity, he showed no remorse, was arrogant, and told nauseating lies.
“Impossible to underestimate what has been done”
The second woman said in her victim impact statement that she was still coming to terms with the incident that destroyed the last three years of her life.
“It is impossible to underestimate what has been done to me unless you’re standing in my shoes,” she said.
He carried my listless body into a bedroom where he violated and raped me.
“I am fearful this statement will not do justice to the pain and humiliation I suffered and I’m scared of that failure,” she said.
The woman said she recalled lying on the examination bed at a hospital the following day and crying her heart out because she had never felt so lonely.
Both victims said Limen’s refusal to give gardaí a blood sample in order to test him for sexually transmitted diseases, caused them considerable distress.
“I had to go to an STD clinic, which was humiliating as I am a married woman,” said one.
The anti-HIV medication made me violently sick and extremely gaunt. It was an extra blow to put us through.
Both women praised their partners, family and friends for supporting them, but said every person in both of their lives have suffered as a result of Limen’s crimes.
Kieran O’Loughlin SC, defending, told the court that Limen was a university graduate from Cameroon, who had been living in Ireland for seven years, and had no previous convictions.
The court heard Limen intends to appeal his conviction as he does not accept the jury’s verdict and to separately make a constitutional challenge regarding the terms of his detention.
Mr Justice Coffey said the crime was aggravated by the “trauma and anguish” it caused the victims. He said there was no “evidentiary basis” for suspending any part of the sentence.
He also imposed a sentence of four years for the sexual assault count and ordered that all three sentences run concurrently.
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