Woman tortured over false drug accusation will never forgive ‘sick' men who attacked her

Irish Times

2 days ago

A woman who was tortured and falsely imprisoned in a Dublin flat over a false accusation about missing drugs has told a court she will never forgive the 'sick human beings' for what they did to her.
During a three-hour period in September last year, in which she was put through 'unimaginable trauma', the woman was beaten around the head and body with metal poles.
She was burned with a makeshift blow torch and a heated hammer head, cut with a knife, kicked and punched, had her hair cut off and was threatened with rape,
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court
heard.
The men took running jumps at her during the assault in a one-bedroom flat at Henrietta House,
Dublin 7
, threatened to make her drink ammonia and also threatened to rape her teenage daughter. She was terrified throughout and thought she was going to die, Caroline Cummings BL, prosecuting, told the sentence hearing on Friday.
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The assault ended only when
gardaí
entered the flat with a search warrant, the court heard. All of the men, who have between one and 124 previous convictions, were on bail at the time of the offence.
In text messages read out in court, one of the men boasted to a friend during the incident that they had a 'hostage' and had 'cut her up', to which this unidentified man replied: 'quality'. Phone video footage taken inside the flat that day was also played in court, which showed the woman bloodied and distressed and a hammer being heated up on a hob.
The woman was left with a broken eye socket, broken cheekbone, broken nasal bone, broken elbow, burns, dislocated teeth, bruising and lacerations across her head and scalp, among other injuries. She required skin grafts, staples to her scalp, and later had surgery to remove a disc in her back, the court heard. She spent three weeks in hospital in the immediate aftermath of the assault.
Five of the eight men present that day entered guilty pleas, while another man and a juvenile are still before the courts. The eighth person is not before the courts.
Mark Keogh (33), Mark McMahon (55) and Braxton Rice (21), all of Henrietta House, Henrietta Place, Dublin 7, along with Sean Conroy (21) of Sillogue Road, Ballymun and Kian Walshe (22) of Constitution Hill, Dublin 7, all pleaded guilty to false imprisonment and assault causing harm to the woman at Henrietta House on September 26th, 2024.
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A number of other counts against each man relating to the production of articles in the course of an offence were taken into consideration.
In her victim impact statement, which was read out by the investigating officer, the 38-year-old woman said she was 'petrified' in the flat. 'If police didn't come in through that door that day, I was sure I was dead,' she said, describing the men as 'animals'.
'I was beaten, stabbed and burnt – tortured to confess to something I knew nothing about,' she said.
'The smell of my skin burning, I will never get that smell out of my mind again,' she said, adding that she was 'completely helpless' and outnumbered by the eight men.
'I never knew humanity could be so cruel,' she said.
Det Garda Peter Guyett told the court that at the time of the incident, the woman and her then partner were staying with one of the men whose case is still before the court. While there, the woman became aware this man was holding drugs in his house.
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On the day in question, this man and another person approached the woman in the house and told her: 'Come on, we've to go,' before she was put into an Audi containing two other men and driven to Henrietta House.
There were eight men in the flat, and a 'baby-faced' man – who later emerged to be Rice – started interrogating her about a €90,000 batch of cocaine that had gone missing from the home she was staying in.
An older man, later identified as McMahon, whose flat it was, held a hatchet up to her face while his son Keogh, referred to in court as 'Sparky', hit her across the head with a pole. Conroy kicked her face. 'Every person there hit her,' Ms Cummings said. 'Not one of them didn't get involved.'
They cut her hair, which the woman later described as 'the ultimate humiliation'.
The man whose house she was staying in was told by the others to get involved, and he cut her legs with some sort of blade. They used an aerosol can and a lighter as a makeshift blowtorch to burn her.
The woman thought the incident lasted for an hour-and-a-half, but CCTV footage showed she was in the flat for three hours before gardaí entered, the court heard.
The woman was present in court for the sentence hearing; in the afternoon, Ms Cummings informed Judge Pauline Codd that it was suspected that someone in court had been recording her. A device had been seized, the court heard.
Judge Codd thanked the woman for attending court. 'She has been through unimaginable trauma,' she said.
The court heard McMahon has 27 previous convictions, including drug dealing and possession, burglary, robbery and malicious damage.
Keogh has 124 previous convictions, including drug dealing and possession, possession of knives, assault causing harm and escaping custody.
Conroy has 89 previous convictions, including drug dealing and possession, burglary and possession of knives.
Rice has 12 previous convictions, including drug dealing and possession. Walshe has one previous conviction.
The maximum sentences for false imprisonment and assault causing harm are life and 10 years respectively.
Judge Codd adjourned the case to next Wednesday, when defence counsel will give their pleas of mitigation.