'I prayed and prepared to die': Victim recalls horror as convicted murderer who raped her jailed for 15 years

He orally raped her three times. The attack only ended when the woman bit down on his penis and pushed him back after he had put his trousers down around his ankles.

Lipinskas fell back and the woman, who had being stripped from the waist down, ran out to a street and into a neighbouring house.

The Central Criminal Court heard that she locked herself into an upstairs bedroom.

The homeowner believed there was an intruder in her house and called gardaí who arrived minutes later to find the victim in an hysterical state.

Lipinskas, formerly of Bayside Square South, Sutton, Dublin had pleaded not guilty to three counts of oral rape and one of aggravated sexual assault at a place in Dublin in August 2010.

On Wednesday, after a 12-day trial, a jury returned unanimous guilty verdict after approximately three hours of deliberations.

This afternoon, Detective Garda Carla Creegan told Mr Justice Tony Hunt that Lipinskas had received a 15-year prison sentence in 1998 for murder committed on November 16, 1995 in Lithuania.

Justice Hunt said Lipinskas was a very dangerous individual and said he believed that Lipinskas should be excluded from Ireland on the basis of public policy.

“He shouldn't be here at all,” he said.

The judge suspended the last two-and-a-half years of the 15-year prison term on condition that Lipinskas leave the State on his release from custody and not return without leave of the court.

The court heard that just before 9pm on the evening of the attack, the woman had arrived home from a friend's house 12 minutes’ walk away.

She was entering her home and had just disarmed the house alarm inside the front door, when Lipinskas pushed his way in.

He began punching her. He raped her downstairs, then dragged her upstairs by her hair and raped her on the stairs.

He then dragged her into her bedroom and raped her a third time, continually saying he was going to kill her.

The woman begged him not to kill her and said she would do whatever he wanted.

In a victim impact statement read by the woman, who is in her 30s, she said the attack changed her life forever and took her away her sense of safety in her own home.

During the reading of her victim impact statement to the court the woman, now aged in her 30s, became emotional at times.

She told the court that she had left her friend's home a short time before the attack but by 9pm her life “had changed forever”.

She told Lipinskas: “You took everything from me.

You broke my soul and spirit. It was like being in a car crash.

She said she finds it difficult to go back into the house where the attack took place, telling him “you took my sense of safety from me.”

“You were the only one who heard me begging please don't kill me, I’ll do anything” she said.

She said she found out what it truly meant to be afraid that evening and said she was prepared to die and later wished she had died.

“I prayed and prepared to die. The more I fought, the more aggressive and violent you became,” she said.

That evening was the worst in my life. For a long time I wish that you did kill me.

"I thought so many times about ending my life, I thought I would never feel normal.

“You took away my dignity that night. I had to beg for my life. I was degraded, forced to flee my home half naked, bruised and battered.

“I still have flashbacks nine years later. I haven’t had a proper nights sleep in nine years,” she said.

The woman said the attack affected her family and friends and her parents found it “so hard” to talk about the fact that “he was going to murder me”.

“My family had to watch me fall apart. Nobody knew what to do. There was nothing they could have done,” she said.

She said during the trial she had to relive the events before her family and a room full of strangers.

I felt like I was the one being judged.

The woman told the court that the day after the attack she contacted the Rape Crisis Centre and found it helpful to speak to somebody who understood what she was going through.

“It takes a long time to work through the pain. I wasn't fine, I was far from it.

"Inside I was screaming and in so much pain. Throughout it all I knew that my counsellor was always there.

“I have spent nine years waiting for this moment. It has taken a very long time, a lot of counselling”.

She said the last nine years felt like living in a prison of grief, sadness, fear and anger, “nine years looking over my shoulder”.

The court heard that Lipinskas booked a ferry ticket to France two days after the attack and left two days later, ultimately travelling back to Lithuania.

He was linked to the attack after his DNA profile showed up on saliva from an unsmoked cigarette left at the house and was eventually extradited here for trial.