LAST UPDATE | 19 Jun 2018

A FATHER-OF-TWO has pleaded guilty to carrying out sex attacks on two women he met on Tinder.

Patrick Nevin (36) pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court this morning to rape of one woman at a location in Bettystown, Co Meath on 12 July 2014.

Nevin, with former addresses at Meadowlands Court, Mounttown Road, Dun Laoghaire and Dundalk, Co Louth, also pleaded guilty to sexual assault of a second woman on 16 July 2014.

Last November the UCD graduate was convicted by a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court of sexually assaulting a Brazilian woman on the college’s campus in south Dublin on 23 July 2014. He is due to be sentenced for that crime.

He carried out the three attacks in an 11-day period and all attacks took place when Nevin had met up with the women after talking to them first online.

In each case Nevin picked the women up in his car on a first date and attacked them after driving them to a secluded spot.

Nevin was due to stand trial this week for the Bellewstown attack but after a legal ruling yesterday which allowed the prosecution to introduce evidence of the other allegations, he changed his plea to guilty.

This morning he entered the plea to the rape offence and to the sexual assault offence, for which he was due to stand trial later this year. He will be sentenced on 26 July.

Evidence

During legal argument last week Nevin’s lawyers asked the court to order media organisations to remove reports of previous trials and offending. Ms Justice Creedon ruled against the defence application, saying that the court was not satisfied there was a real risk of an unfair trial if the material was not taken down.

As part of a second legal issue, prosecuting counsel submitted that the evidence of all three assaults was relevant to the case as there was a similar methodology used. Ms Justice Eileen Creedon said that the court had to strike a balance between the probative value of such evidence and its prejudicial effect.

She said that because of the similarity in the modus operandi she would accede to the request to include the evidence.

Evidence of the two offences which Nevin pleaded to today will be heard at the sentencing date next month.

The evidence of the Brazilian woman, now aged 35, was heard during the trial last November. She had just arrived in Ireland and wanted to meet Irish people to practice her English.

After some weeks of communicating with Nevin on the Tinder dating programme and on Whatsapp, she arranged to meet him. He told her he would take her to a place that had the “best coffee in Dublin” but Nevin later told gardaí that he saw the date as a “hook up” for sex.

Nevin picked her up in his car, a blue BMW, and drove her to a secluded field on UCD campus. The woman said that his demeanour then “changed completely” and he became aggressive.

She said he became like “a monster”. She said that he attacked her and she was in fear of her life and thought Nevin was going to rape her.

After the jury in the November trial left the courtroom, Nevin told his lawyers, “I don’t accept that verdict.”

In his closing speech Paul Burns SC, prosecuting, had told the jurors that they might feel the woman was naive, foolish and awfully stupid but that did not give anyone the right to attack her.

He said that simply agreeing to meet someone does not make them fair game. He said the complainant was not looking for sex and at no stage did she show an interest in meeting the man for sex.

“Everyone has the right to say no to sexual advances. No-one is entitled to force themselves on another,” he said.

He said there was no reason for the woman to lie and it was highly unlikely that a woman would travel here, three years after the events in question, to mislead or make false allegations.

He asked why someone would subject themselves to what she had undergone in the courtroom, unless she was telling the truth.