A Limerick man has been sentenced to 17 years in jail for the rape and sexual assault of a teenage girl.
52 year old Patrick O’Dea of Pike Avenue in Limerick city isolated, manipulated and groomed the young girl in the 1990's and raped her once in a graveyard.
His now 37 year old victim, Leona O’Callaghan, waived her right to anonymity so he can be named.
O’Dea, who pleaded guilty, is already serving 15 years for raping a different girl and this 17 year sentence will run concurrent to that.
Ms O’Callaghan was speaking outside the court this afternoon:
Leona O’Callaghan has bravely spoken outside court about the man who raped her when she was a teenager. One attack was in a graveyard. He was jailed for 17 years but that’s to run concurrent to a 15 year sentence he’s already serving for raping a different girl. pic.twitter.com/CbFFsDHPdN
— Stephanie Rohan (@StephGrogan3) November 19, 2018
She said "The damage he did to my mind was the hardest part to get over".
"Obviously the rape was physical and it did damage to my body and the pain was immense".
"But the mind takes a lot longer to recover from. The self-hatred and doubt that you go through about what you could have done differently, about why eh chose you in particular".