A MAN WHO raped, assaulted and coercively controlled a woman in the course of a six week relationship has been jailed for 17 years.

On various occasions Dean Ward (36) sprayed Mace into the woman’s face, tied her up, choked her and then raped her, threatened her with a hammer and punched her in the face. He controlled her access to friends and family, took over her online banking and monitoring her whereabouts and her mobile phone and removed her contraceptive device as she slept.

At the Central Criminal Court this morning, Justice Kerida Naidoo suspended the final year of an 18 year sentence for the most serious rape offence. He imposed a four year term, to run concurrently, for an offence of coercive control, which has a maximum sentence of five years.

Speaking outside court Sinéad O’Neill, from Killybegs, Co Donegal said she was speaking out to show others that support was available. She said that she felt stuck in fear but that she received “amazing support” from the moment she reached out to gardai for help.

She said she hoped that her case would encourage anyone out there in an abusive relationship to seek help and confide in somebody. She said she believed that by getting Ward locked up she has saved other women from a similar ordeal.

“To any woman in a similar situation, please reach out”

Sinéad O’Neill from Killybegs in Co Donegal speaks outside court, after a 36-year-old man was jailed for 17 years for raping, falsely imprisoning, assaulting, and threatening to kill her | More: https://t.co/iKCoPqRr0d pic.twitter.com/OsOt5rqOmV

— RTÉ News (@rtenews) July 28, 2022

Ward of Ballintlea, Hollyfort, Gorey, Wexford was previously jailed for four years for falsely imprisoning and assaulting a young mother in November 2015. Ward and that woman had met on the the internet dating website Plenty of Fish and Ward attack her on their third date in the woman’s own home.

Garda Superintendent Karen Duffy said the offence of coercive control is a relatively new one and she would encourage any women or men in an abusive relationship to come to gardai.

Ward, also known as Dean Alexander Fowkes, used a different name on first meeting his victim. He was convicted following a trial earlier this year of four counts of assault, false imprisonment, making a threat to kill, two counts of production of articles, three counts of rape and coercive control on dates between 11 June and 17 July in 2019.

The offences occurred over the course of a six week period between the woman meeting the man for the first time in May 2019 and his arrest by armed gardai at her home in July 2019. Ward does not accept the verdict of the jury and continues to maintain his innocence. He has been in custody since his arrest on 17 July 2019.

Mr Justice Naidoo noted that the rapes took place in a controlling relationship and that consent was not freely given. He said the woman’s acquiescence to sexual intercourse was secured by fear in circumstances where she was subjected to force before the rape or fear as a result of the cumulative effect of Ward’s behaviour over time.

He said the first offence of rape was aggravated by violence and extreme degradation. After a row Ward had broken into the woman’s home, punched her in the face and told he was going to kill her.

He took her upstairs and pulled out a knife which he used to cut up a towel and then he used the shreds to tie her up and began choking her from behind. Justice Naidoo said the woman believed she was going to die and she lost control of her bladder. Ward knew the woman had a particular fear of drowning and said he would do this.

The woman’s terror at this prospect was so great that she offered to take her own life by slitting her wrists, the judge said. Ward then raped her.

Justice Naidoo set a headline sentence of 18 years for this offence, the most serious of all the offending. He said there was virtually no mitigation but he suspended one year on condition that Ward obey the instructions of the Probation Service after his release.

He imposed lesser sentences on the other offences, all of which to run concurrently.