SERIAL SEX OFFENDER Patrick Nevin was today given a 12-year sentence for attacking two women he met on Tinder.

Nevin (37) attacked three women in the space of 11 days in 2014. The assaults took place during Nevin’s first meetings with the women, whom he had communicated with via Tinder and mobile phone.

Today’s sentencing was in relation to two of the attacks - the rape of one woman and the sexual assault of another. 

Ms Justice Eileen Creedon imposed a sentence of 14 years for rape with two years suspended on the condition that he engage in anger management treatment, and abstain from using bodybuilding or performance-enhancing substances.

She imposed an eight-year sentence for sexual assault, which will run concurrently, and a five-year period of post-release supervision. Nevin’s sentence was backdated to 2015 when he went into custody.

The computer programmer is already serving a five-and-a-half-year sentence for the sexual assault of a Brazilian student he also met on Tinder. 

Nevin received this sentence last year after being convicted at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in late 2017. This offence took place at the University College Dublin campus on 23 July 2014.

Nevin - previously of Meadowlands Court, Mounttown Road, Dún Laoghaire, and Dundalk, Co Louth – picked up one of the other two victims at her home before driving to a secluded spot in north Dublin.

After kissing, the court previously heard that Nevin moved on top of the woman but she said she didn’t want this.

Nevin became extremely angry and started calling her a “mickey tease” and “c*nt”, and told her she could get out and walk home if she wasn’t going to have sex with him. He told her that “you shouldn’t have aroused me” and said she was “making a thick out of me”, the court was told.

“I’m a fella, I go to the gym. I’m full of testosterone. If you were a fella I’d box the head off you. But you’re not, therefore I’ll let you walk home instead,” he told her.

‘I was convinced he was going to leave me for dead’

One of the women Nevin raped told the court last year she feared he would kill her.

“To say I was terrified is an understatement. After he raped me I was convinced he was going to leave me for dead in that area – beside an old graveyard,” she said at the time. 

I had images running through my head of how he was going to kill me. He had the strength.

In July 2018, Nevin pleaded guilty to raping this woman at Bellewstown in Co Meath on 12 July 2014, and to sexual assault four days later of the other woman at an unknown place in Co Meath.

The father-of-two had been due to stand trial but changed his plea to guilty following a legal ruling which would have allowed the prosecution to introduce evidence from other women describing sexual assault by Nevin on a first date.

He knew where they lived

Previously the courts heard that in all of the attacks Nevin would convince the women to meet him for a drive and he would pick them up at their home in a blue BMW. The court heard the women were fearful after the attack because Nevin knew where they lived.

Lawyers for Nevin asked the court to consider in mitigation his guilty plea and said this plea was of comfort to the victims. Paddy McGrath SC, defending, said his client’s plea was an expression of his remorse.

McGrath also said Nevin had written letters of apology to the victims. He said his client was a relatively young man and asked the court to leave him some light at end of the tunnel.

The victim of the 12 July 2014 attack told the court she was convinced Nevin would come to her home and will always be paranoid about it as long as she lives there with her son.

Last year the court heard that Nevin picked her up at her home and drove her into north county Dublin in the direction of Julianstown, Co Meath. He told her he had worked in Co Louth and drove the car into a small road between Julianstown and Duleek in front of a secluded cemetery.

He dropped her passenger seat back and there was some consensual sex including oral sex. The victim later texted a friend telling her that “she understood what a drive could mean” and “she expected kissing and him asking for a blow job at most”.

After the oral sex the victim made it clear to Nevin that she didn’t want anything else but he then raped her. He masturbated on top of her and then cleaned up with tissues he had brought for that purpose.

The victim asked him why he had raped her and he told her he found her attractive, got carried away and was sorry.

This woman told the court that the attack “has impacted on my ability to be fully focused on being a confident, happy outgoing mother that my son needed and deserved.

“Instead my son has had to deal with a sad, scared, suicidal and depressed mother,” she continued. 

Attack recorded on mobile phone 

Nevin’s attack on the other woman was recorded on his mobile phone and he can be heard getting angry and telling her to get out and walk home if she didn’t have sex with him.

Sergeant Selina Proudfoot said the number of times the victim said no to Nevin during the 44-minute long ordeal was “notable”.

The woman, whom Nevin called a “c*nt”, got out of the car and started walking along a dark country road. Nevin followed her and stopped the car, the court was told.

The victim later told gardaí he was really nice this time and “like a different person”, so she got back into the car because she didn’t know where she was.

Proudfoot said Nevin then took his penis out, pinned her down and pulled at her nipples. She had a panic attack and had to open the car door to breath.

Nevin kept hold of her arm so she couldn’t get out and she asked him again to please bring her home. He said he would but when she sat back in she was made masturbate him until he ejaculated.

She said that as he drove her home Nevin’s behaviour was very strange and he was picking her hand up, kissing it and telling her he couldn’t believe he had “fucked up” and wasn’t going to see her again.

The woman told the court she had been terrified. Proudfoot told the court this was a life-altering event for her and she has suffered from severe anxiety since and was anxious Nevin would show up at her home.

Apology

McGrath told the court that Nevin had asked him to express his remorse and to apologise to the victims.

He said his client’s relationship with his parents had been “somewhat difficult” and his main support was his father rather than his mother. Counsel said his father had attended at court on a number of occasions.

He said while in custody Nevin completed his Leaving Cert and a BSc in software engineering with the assistance of UCD and the prison service. He has worked as a software engineer.

McGrath said there was no evidence that Nevin had made any threats to kill one of the rape victims though he said it was understandable that she might have this fear.

He also said there was no evidence of Nevin going to the homes of the victims after the offences. He noted that in the victim impact statement of the second complainant she said that she felt lighter as a result of the case coming to a conclusion.

The first complainant said she was convinced Nevin would come to her home and will always be paranoid about it as long as she lives there with her son.

“When he is released from prison I don’t want to be in the same country as him. Many times I would cry myself to sleep hoping that I would never wake up again,” she said.

“I once told my counsellor that in a way I felt sorry for him and what must he have been through in life to make him turn out the way he did. I’ve always had empathy for people but he doesn’t deserve any of it.

“He made the choices he did, despite the many ‘no’s and ‘stop’s I said.”

Previous attack on partner and dogs

Nevin has a previous conviction for assault on a former partner in 2001.

The court heard that he battered the woman’s two dogs to death before punching and kicking the woman in a prolonged assault which only ended when he finally fell asleep.

He was jailed for seven years for this attack and released in 2007. In April 2012 he was given a suspended four-year sentence for a firearms conviction.

Garda Sergeant Mark Buckley said that in April 2010 Nevin had committed a minor traffic infringement and then failed to stop.

During a garda pursuit that followed he threw a stun gun from the car. He was still serving this suspended sentence when he committed the sex attacks in July 2014.

Contains reporting by Fiona Ferguson and Órla Ryan

Helpline: Dublin Rape Crisis Centre: 1800 77 8888