A MAN WHO went to view a student’s room advertised on Daft.ie and sexually assaulted her when she let him in, has lost an appeal against his sentence.
Indian national Dileesh Soman (33), with an address at Tramway Terrace, Douglas, Cork, had pleaded guilty at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to sexually assaulting a woman at an address in a different part of Cork City on 11 November 2013.
He was sentenced to four years with the final 12 months suspended by Judge Sean Ó Donnabháin on 20 February 2015.
Soman lost an appeal against the severity of his sentence today with the Court of Appeal holding that prison was unlikely to be more difficult for him in circumstances where he was well settled in Ireland and had some command of the English language.
Giving judgment, Mr Justice John Edwards said the injured party – a 30-year-old postgraduate student – had advertised a room for rent in her apartment on the website daft.ie.
Mr Justice Edwards said it was her first experience of ever advertising for a person to share her apartment.
She will now only consider female flatmates or else will simply absorb the extra financial burden of living alone, the judge said.
Sexual assault
On the date in question she received a text message from Soman, who she met at approximately 7.30pm and let him in. He was using the alias of ‘Aaron’ at the time.
The injured party said he showed a complete lack of interest in the apartment and that when shown the bedroom the conversation became strange.
Soman told her that the room had a very bad energy and he asked her to show various parts of her body including her wrists, elbow, belly and knees. She did this out of fear and continually told him she felt uncomfortable about doing so.
Mr Justice Edwards said Soman touched her breasts, opened her jeans and put his hand inside her underwear and finger into her vagina. He put her on the counter in the kitchen, spread her legs and stated ‘I’m now going to touch you’, as he gestured towards his penis.
At times throughout the sexual assault he made various comments to her including ‘nothing bad is going on’ and ‘it’s okay, we’re not going to have sex here,’ the judgment stated.
The injured party shouted at him and he stopped. On the way out, he pulled a hair from her head and put it in his wallet.
She returned to the apartment crying and told a friend what had happened who in turn contacted the gardaí.
Appeal dismissed
Counsel for Soman, Ronan Munro BL, submitted that the judge gave insufficient weight to the contention that prison would be much harder for him as a non-national with medical difficulties arising out of a hip replacement.
Mr Justice Edwards said Soman had been living and working in Ireland for more than six years so Irish society was no longer culturally alien to him.
Moreover, while his English may not be perfect, he did speak the language and it was at a sufficient level for him to function in the workplace.
Soman was undoubtedly entitled to a reasonable discount for mitigation but he was not wholly co-operative, exhibited no remorse and had sought to blame the victim to some extent to suggest that she had consented to some of what he had done.
Mr Justice Edwards, who sat with Mr Justice Garrett Sheehan and Mr Justice Alan Mahon, dismissed the appeal.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say