Serial sex offender Nevin gets 14 years for Tinder rape

The Dock

(Pictured: Patrick Nevin. Credit: Collins)

A serial sex offender who attacked three women in the space of eleven days after meeting them through Tinder has been jailed for 12 years.

Patrick Nevin (37) attacked the women on first meeting them after he had texted them on the Tinder dating app and over the mobile phone.

A Probation Service report noted that Nevin had a preoccupation with sex and used sex as an emotional coping mechanism. It also stated he had a hostility towards women and placed him at a high risk of re-offending.

Last June Nevin pleaded guilty to raping one woman at Bellewstown, Co Meath on July 12, 2014 and to sexual assault four days later of a second woman at an unknown place in Co Meath.

The father-of-two had been due to stand trial but changed his pleas to guilty following a legal ruling, which would allow the prosecution to introduce evidence from the other women describing sexual assault by Nevin on a first date.

His lawyers had challenged the admissibility of this “conduct evidence” but Ms Justice Eileen Creedon ruled in favour of the State. Last November she adjourned sentencing to allow time for a Probation Service assessment to be carried out.

The Central Criminal Court heard that Nevin, previously of Meadowlands Court, Mounttown Road, Dún Laoghaire and Dundalk, Co Louth, met both women on Tinder.

The computer programmer is already serving a five and a half year sentence imposed last year for the sexual assault of a Brazilian woman he met on Tinder. This offence took place at the UCD campus on July 23, 2014, only weeks after she arrived in Dublin.

His lawyers told the court today that an appeal against this conviction has being withdrawn.

Nevin used the same “modus operandi” in all three attacks. He would convince the women to meet with him for a drive and he would pick them up at their home in a blue BMW. The court heard the women believed Nevin would kill them during the attack and were fearful afterwards because Nevin knew where they lived.

The first victim said she had agreed to meet him after telling him she did not want to meet for sex or a “one night stand”.

Nevin picked her up at her home and drove for about 20 minutes to a remote back road in Meath. He parked up beside a graveyard and told the woman he knew this area and was known in Dundalk “and not in a good way”.

He mentioned the IRA and told her “don’t worry I’m not going to kill you here”. After some consensual sex took place, the woman made it clear she didn’t want to do anything else but Nevin then raped her despite her asking him to stop.

Reading from her own victim impact statement this woman told the court that the rape changed her life and had affected her relationship with her young son.

“To say I was terrified is an understatement. After he raped me I was convinced he was going to leave me for dead in that area, beside an old graveyard.”

“I had images running through my head of how he was going to kill me. He had the strength”.

Five days later Nevin picked up the second victim at her home. They had met online on July 2. He drove her to a country lane.

After some kissing, Nevin moved on top of her but the victim said she did not want this. Nevin became extremely angry and began calling her a “mickey tease” and “c*nt” and told her she could get out and walk home if she wasn’t going to have sex with him.

He told her that “you shouldn’t have aroused me” and said she was “making a thick out of me”. He put her out of the car on a dark country road late at night and drove on a bit.

He came back and told her to get back in and his mood seemed calmer. Once back in the car he pinned her down and began to sexually assault her.

He continued his attack even after the woman suffered a panic attack and only stopped after ejaculating. He then told her he had recorded it on his phone, which the court heard left the woman feeling embarrassed and worried about where the recording might end up.

Today, Ms Justice Creedon said the two attacks were premeditated and callous. She said Nevin had behaved in a predatory fashion, choosing his victims at random from the dating app.

He then carried out the attacks with cold pursuit and a remorseless attitude. In the second attack he tricked the victim back into the car after initially telling her to get out when she refused sex.

She set a headline sentence of 15 years. She noted that he has since written letters of apology to both victims. A forensic psychiatric report was sought by his lawyers but was never provided to the court.

The judge reduced the sentence by one year to 14 years to take into considerations the guilty pleas and apology. She suspended the final two years and ordered him to be subject for five years post release supervision.

As part of this supervision, she ordered that he abstain from physical performance and body building substances and refrain from using the Internet or dating sites to contact people.

The judge also ordered him to engage in offence focused programmes and to address his low tolerance threshold and anger management. Finally she ordered that he must notify the Probation Service if he plans to leave the country.

The sentence was backdated to June 2015. Nevin has being in custody since September 2014 when he was first arrested for the UCD campus attack.

Lawyers for Nevin had asked the court to consider in mitigation his guilty plea and said this plea was of comfort to the victims. Paddy McGrath SC, defending, said his client’s plea was an expression of his remorse.

Mr McGrath also said Nevin had written letters of apology to the victims. He said that his client was a relatively young man and asked the court to leave him some light at end of the tunnel.

The victim of the July 12 attack told the court that she was convinced Nevin would come to her home and will always be paranoid about it as long as she lives there with her son.

Nevin’s attack on the other woman was recorded on his mobile phone and he can be heard getting angry and telling her to get out and walk home if she didn’t have sex with him. Sergeant Selina Proudfoot said the number of times the victim said no to Nevin during the 44 minute long ordeal was “notable”.

Nevin has a previous conviction for assault on a former partner in 2001. The court heard that he battered the woman’s two dogs to death before punching and kicking the woman in a prolonged assault which only ended when he finally fell asleep.

He was jailed for seven years for this attack and released in 2007. In April 2012 he was given a suspended four year sentence for a firearms conviction. The court heard that in April 2010 Nevin had failed to stop for gardaí after breaking a red light.

During the garda pursuit that followed, he threw a stun gun from the car. He was still serving this suspended sentence when he committed the sex attacks in July 2014.

Garda Sergeant Mark Buckley told the court that Nevin met the first woman on Tinder on July 12, 2014 and after some text messages she agreed to meet him.

He picked her up at her home and drove her into north county Dublin in the direction of Julianstown, Co Meath. He told her he had worked in Co Louth and drove the car into a small road between Julianstown and Duleek in front of a secluded cemetery.

He dropped her passenger seat back and there was some consensual sex, including oral sex. The victim later texted a friend telling her that “she understood what a drive could mean” and “she expected kissing and him asking for a blow job at most”.

After the oral sex the victim made it clear to Nevin that she did not want anything else but he then raped her. He digitally penetrated her twice and vaginally raped her.

He then masturbated on top of her and cleaned up with tissues he had brought for that purpose. As he drove the woman back into the city she asked him why he had raped her. He told her he found her attractive, and he got carried away and was sorry.

This woman told the court that the attack “has impacted on my ability to be fully focused on being a confident, happy outgoing mother that my son needed and deserved.

“Instead my son has had to deal with a sad, scared, suicidal and depressed mother,” she continued. Nevin appeared to become upset during these remarks.

Sgt Proudfoot told the court that she investigated the second complainant’s case and took a statement from her in September 2014. This woman was 27 when she met Nevin on Tinder and agreed to meet him for a drive.

Nevin again picked the victim up at her home before he drove into north Dublin and stopped the car at a graveyard. After some consensual kissing Nevin moved on top of her but the victim said she didn’t want this.

Nevin became extremely angry and began calling her a “mickey tease” and “c*nt” and told her she could get out and walk home if she wasn’t going to have sex with him.

He told her that “you shouldn’t have aroused me” and said she was “making a thick out of me”.

“I’m a fella, I go to the gym. I’m full of testosterone. If you were a fella I’d box the head off you. But you’re not, therefore I’ll let you walk home instead”.

The woman got out of the car and started walking along a dark country road. Nevin followed her and stopped the car.

The victim later told gardai that he was really nice this time “like a different person”, so she got back into the car because she didn’t know where she was.

Sgt Proudfoot said Nevin then took his penis out, pinned her down and pulled at her nipples. She had a panic attack and had to open the car door to breath.

Nevin kept hold of her arm so she couldn’t get out and she asked him again to please bring her home. He said he would but when she sat back in, she was made masturbate him until he ejaculated.

She said that as he drove her home Nevin’s behaviour was very strange and he was picking her hand up, kissing it and telling her he couldn’t believe he had “fucked up” and wasn’t going to see her again.

The woman was terrified. Sgt Proudfoot told the court this was a life altering event for her and she has suffered from severe anxiety since and was anxious he would show up at her home.

Mr McGrath told the court that Nevin had asked him to express his remorse and to apologise to the victims.

He said his client’s relationship with his parents had been “somewhat difficult” and his main support was his father rather than his mother. Counsel said his father had attended at court on a number of occasions.

He said while in custody, Nevin completed his Leaving Cert and a BSc in software engineering with the assistance of UCD and the prison service. He has worked as a software engineer.

Mr McGrath said there was no evidence that Nevin had made any threats to kill the rape victim though he said it was understandable that she might have this fear.

He also said there was no evidence of Nevin going to the homes of the victims after the offences.

He noted that in the victim impact statement of the second complainant she said that she felt lighter as a result of the case coming to a conclusion.

The first complainant said she was convinced Nevin would come to her home and will always be paranoid about it as long as she lives there with her son.

“When he is released from prison I don’t want to be in the same country as him. Many times I would cry myself to sleep hoping that I would never wake up again,” she said.

“I once told my counsellor that in a way I felt sorry for him and what must he have been through in life to make him turn out the way he did. I’ve always had empathy for people but he doesn’t deserve any of it.

“He made the choices he did, despite the many ‘nos’ and ‘stops’ I said.”