A YOUNG college student was discovered in an abandoned house in a critical hypothermic state, partially clothed and covered in cuts and bruises, hours after she had been raped in a random attack.
Her rapist, Mihail Ciorici (41), was jailed for 11 years by Justice Paul McDermott at the Central Criminal Court.
The woman had been on a night out with friends in Fermoy, County Cork, before she attempted to hail a taxi back to an Airbnb she had been staying in.
Numerous witnesses, including a Garda coming off duty, noticed that she was highly intoxicated at the time.
Mr Ciorici, who had just had sex with his girlfriend in a nearby woodland, was driving past in his car with his girlfriend when he stopped to pick up the woman. He told his girlfriend the woman was probably drunk and needed help to get home.
He dropped his girlfriend off and headed out of Fermoy to return to the woodland area the couple had been in earlier. There, he stopped the car and raped the victim.
It is believed that the woman managed to escape from the car and run through the woodlands wearing only a red hoodie and a sock.
She found an abandoned house where she remained until she was discovered by Gardaí the following morning. She was semi-conscious and in a critical, hypothermic state. Medical staff later struggled to find a vein to treat her.
“I can hear myself saying ‘no’”
Ciorici of Woodfield Park, Newcastle West, County Limerick, originally faced charges of false imprisonment and endangerment, but he later pleaded guilty to rape and oral rape on November 18, 2022. The Director of Public Prosecutions accepted the pleas on the basis of full facts.
The court heard that the woman did not wish to make a victim impact statement to the court.
She was interviewed by Gardaí using a special technique known as an enhanced cognitive interview.
The woman said she did not remember very much from the night. She recalled a struggle in a confined space and saying “no”.
“I remember small things … I am guessing the confined area is a car. I remember lying in an ambulance. I remember long briary bushes and running through them, running from something – not caring that I was falling because I was running away from something,” she said.
“I remember it was dark and confined and something holding me down. I did have the vision of feeling a tight space in a car. I can hear myself saying ‘no’. I was running from something I feared,” she said.
Justice McDermott said Ciorici had clearly taken advantage of the woman knowing that she was in an intoxicated state, disposing of her clothing and mobile phone with no way of her retrieving them.
“It was no thanks to him that she survived this ordeal,” the judge said.
A married man with children
He praised Gardaí who used CCTV footage to trace the movement of the car on the night in their efforts to find the woman.
Mr Justice McDermott said he was taking into account Ciorici’s plea of guilty and family support before he sentenced him to 12 years in prison.
He suspended the final year of that sentence for two years on condition that he engage with the Probation Service. He also ordered that he undergo five years post-release supervision.
Inspector Daniel Holland told Anne Rowland SC, prosecuting, that CCTV footage captured the woman’s attempts to hail a taxi. Ciorici was also spotted on CCTV stopping his vehicle to pick up the woman. Gardaí were later able to recover some details from the car registration plate from the footage.
Ciorici, a married man, was about 90 minutes away from his home in Newcastle West. He later told Gardaí that it was his intention to have sex with the woman after he had picked her up.
The woman had just activated the location aspect on her Snapchat app so her friends could see her location when they noticed she had left them. They called her at 2.35am on the night.
She answered the phone and said “help me, help me”, but then there was silence and the phone hung up. Her friends later got Snapchat messages reading “help me now… Oh my God help me.”
Her friends could see the location of her phone and contacted emergency services at 5am to report her missing when they returned to their Airbnb and discovered the woman was not there.
Gardaí went to the location of the phone and looked around the area but could not locate the woman given the woodland terrain and the darkness. The air temperature was below zero and there was ground frost.
The search was called off and Gardaí returned at 7.30am. They spotted a house that had a number of outbuildings and called to the homeowner, who was able to provide Gardaí with keys to a neighbouring abandoned building where the woman was found.
The woman was treated for hypothermia and transferred to hospital. In a follow up examination at a Sexual Assault Treatment Unit, injuries and semen were found on her genital area.
Forensic evidence in the case was strong
Insp Holland said Cirorici was arrested after Gardaí sought the assistance of the Department of Transport in locating a vehicle matching that on the footage with the partial registration they had spotted.
It was the only vehicle that fitted the description and Ciorici was the registered owner. He was arrested and DNA samples were taken.
Gardaí later located the woman’s clothing, including a pair of jeans with her shoes and underwear still in them and her phone. They had been discarded in an area near where the woman was found.
Ciorici told Gardaí the woman ran from the car. He said she had left her phone behind and he threw it behind a stump of a tree.
He accepted he had gone down the laneway to have sex with the woman. He said he tried to wake her up and suggested she woke and began hugging him, initiating the interaction between them.
He then accepted he had orally raped her and raped her before she ran from the car.
Ciorici has been on remand since his arrest. He has previous convictions for drunk driving, theft, and had a conviction from his native Moldova for the assault and false imprisonment of a teenager after the child stole his phone.
Insp Holland accepted in cross-examination from Elizabeth O’Connell SC, defending, that her client’s admissions are significant because the woman was not in a position to give a detailed account of what happened.
The Inspector did however add that the forensic evidence in the case was strong.
He acknowledged that there was no report to suggest that Ciorici was physically violent towards the woman.
The inspector accepted that there were no sexual elements to Ciorici’s previous convictions.
He remains married and his wife and teenage sons have visited him via video conference in prison, the court heard.
by Sonya McLean
