Convicted rapist attempted to rob woman 14 hours after his release
A convicted rapist who attempted to rob a 24-year-old woman 14 hours after being released from prison is to be sentenced later at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Trevor Byrne (aged 32) of O' Devaney Gardens, pleaded guilty to the attempted robbery of Noemie Krey, at Leo Street, Dublin 7 on September 15, 2009. He also pleaded guilty to two counts of burglary at the same address on the same date.
The court heard that Byrne had been released from prison approximately 14 hours before and was under garda surveillance at the time.
A garda watching him saw him enter the victim’s house but he “did not know the context of him entering the house” but “saw him running away”.
Garda Ronan Hobbs told Mr James Dwyer BL, prosecuting, that Ms Krey, a French national, had been out at a social gathering and was walking home when she saw someone in a red hoodie coming towards her but thought nothing of it.
She called her friend to tell her that she had reached her home. She had her phone in her right hand and the key of the house in her left when she saw the same individual.
Ms Krey asked the individual what he wanted and he grabbed her phone and hit her on the side of the face with it.
He told her to open the door so she did and he followed her inside and said he wanted money from her.
She said she told him she had to get money from the bedroom where her flatmate was asleep. As Ms Krey went up the stairs Byrne walked beside her and grabbed her.
She knocked on the door, which made Byrne angry because he knew she would not have to do so if it was her own bedroom.
Byrne vanished from the scene when her flatmate came out of the bedroom and they carried out a search of the house but Byrne had “made good his escape”, the court heard.
Byrne was arrested the next day and interviewed at Mountjoy garda station.
He denied contact with Ms Krey, denied entering her home, and would not participate in an ID parade.
He also denied he had been wearing a red hoodie even though both Ms Krey and the garda watching him had seen him in it, until he was shown CCTV footage of himself.
Gda Hobbs told the court that Byrne had nine previous convictions including one where he received a 15-year sentence for orally and vaginally raping an 18-year-old woman.
In that incident, he had stuck the woman on the head with a brick telling her he had to kill her as she would identify him, the court heard.
He also was sentenced to five years in October 2006 after a assaulting a 32-year-old woman whose throat he said he would cut. When two men came to her rescue, he said he would do the same to them.
It was on his release from this sentence that he carried out the offence on Ms Krey, just 14 hours after being let out of jail.
In her victim impact statement, Ms Krey told the court that as well a blow to the face, her arm was slightly swollen.
She said she received psychiatric treatment as three months later she began to have nightmares.
Ms Krey told the court she sometimes had to get out of bed to turn on the light and is always watching to see if someone is following her.
“I will always be connected in some way with Trevor Byrne’s life,” she told the court. “I just hope that nobody else has to go through what I had to – It’s horrible,” she said.
Judge Patricia Ryan remanded Byrne in custody and is to sentence him in March.
