Paddy CumminsAn Irish soldier from Londonderry has been sentenced to eight-and-a-half years in prison for raping a woman in a Dublin hotel.
Kielan Mooney, 30, of Bloomfield Park, Derry, was found guilty in December of three counts of rape and one count of sexual assault.
The attack happened in July 2021.
The victim said Mooney’s actions had taken a serious toll on her mental health and had left her feeling suicidal.
‘Heartbreaking’
“What happened changed my life, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone,” the victim said in her impact statement.
She said telling her family she was raped was “one of the most heartbreaking experiences”.
After his conviction by a jury in December, mitigating factors were supplied to the court by way of affidavits which were given as character references for Mooney.
They were supplied by relatives and friends, with some saying Mooney was a good father to his five children.
One said “his children miss him dearly”, another described Mooney as “adoring” his children and said he was a “dedicated father”.
On Monday, the court heard that two women – who have four children to Mooney -had also supplied statements to the court stating that their children had no contact with Mooney and had not for quite some time.
One of the mothers said that after the pair had broken up, Mooney did not maintain any contact with them.
After the Covid-19 pandemic, the mother said she reached out to him again but that, after a short time, their child did not want to see Mooney as he was “always letting them down” and contact stopped fully in 2022.
The second woman said her two children had not seen their father in two years.
She said he had “never paid child maintenance” and “was not a great father”.
She also described how he “left one of my children sitting in playschool for 36 minutes cause he forgot to get her, twice in a row”.
“I would never let him near my children now,” she said.
Mr Justice Tony Hunt said that there had been an attempt to “mislead” him and that he did “not take kindly” to such action.