29 March 2018 CITY DUBLIN GAZETTE 9
COURTS: SLAWOMIR GIERLOWSKI FOUND GUILTY OF ATTACKING WOMEN IN 2011 AND 2015
Man is convicted of random and violent sex attacks
A JURY has convicted a roofer of carrying out three random and violent attacks on women in Dublin in a five year period. Slawomir Gierlowski (33) of Galtymore Road, Drimnagh had pleaded not guilty to false imprisonment, sexual assault and assault of a woman on September 11, 2011 and to false imprisonment, sexual assault and assault of a second woman on September 3, 2015. He also denied falsely imprisoning and assaulting a third woman and having a hunting knife with intent to intimidate on May 16, 2016. This third attack took place on Knockmeenagh Lane, Clondalkin, not far from the other two attacks
and from a house occupied by the family of Gierlowski’s partner. The women cannot be identified for legal reasons. Shortly after 11am, the jury of eleven men found Gierlowski guilty of carrying out the 2016 attack. The jury had deliberated for a little under five hours in total, having returned guilty verdicts relating to the earlier offences on Thursday afternoon. All verdicts were unanimous ones. Judge Pauline Codd thanked the jurors for their care in deliberating. She also praised the “assiduous” work carried out by the gardai investigating the three crimes. She said the difficult cases were handled with sensitivity.
The judge commended the three complainants for the strength and courage showed by each of them in giving evidence during the trial. Gierlowski, a Polish national who has lived and worked in Ireland since 2008, sat impassively as the verdicts were delivered. He has been in custody since his arrest in June 2016 as a suspect for the attack the previous month. Judge Codd said she will set a future sentence date shortly. The first attack took place late at night on September 11, 2011. Gierlowski attacked a woman walking home from a night out, dragging her to the ground
and sexually assaulting her. She managed to get away from him but he caught her and began punching her repeatedly around the face. On September 3, 2015 a woman was also walking home late at night when Gierlowski came up behind her and put a leather belt around her neck and began pulling backwards. He pulled her to the ground and then wrapped duct tape around her face and hands before sexually assaulting her. The third attack was carried out in broad daylight on the morning of May 16, 2016. The victim was walking along Knockmeenagh Lane to the nearby Luas
The Central Criminal Court in Dublin
stop when Gierlowski, armed with a hunting knife, put his arm around her neck and began to pull her backwards. This woman told the court that she thought Gierlowski was going to slit her throat and she grabbed the blade to stop that happening, causing the knife to cut tendons in three of her fingers. She managed to get out from under the knife and began screaming and Gierlowski ran off. Gierlowski was identi-
Man who exploited young girls ordered not to take part in computer programming course A DUBLIN man sentenced earlier this year for possession of child pornography and coercing young girls to send him sexually graphic images has been ordered not to take part in a computer programming course. Matthew Horan (26) was sentenced last January to nine-and-a-half years with the final two years suspended. Judge Martin Nolan had ordered a probation report on that date into what interventions and services the prison service could provide to reform Horan. Lorcan Staines BL, prosecuting, told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court that the probation report confirmed that the “Better Lives” program would be available to Horan. He said that the report also asked the court to make an order that a certain type of programme not be entered into by Horan. Judge Nolan ordered that Horan not be allowed to enter into a computer programming course as outlined in the probation report. He also ordered that Horan enter a bond to be of good behaviour for two years from the date of his release, undergo two years post release supervision and avail of all services available to him.
During the sentence hearing last January, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard Horan used Skype, Snapchat, Instagram and Kik, an anonymous instant messaging application, to send and receive child porn images from six identified child users in Ireland and nine unknown users around the world. A forensic examination of Horan’s computer uncovered recorded Skype calls between him and two nine year-old-girls, both individually and together. The recordings included footage of these girls engaging in graphic sexual acts. Horan also took part in sexually explicit text conversations with the girls, during which there would be an exchange of photos. Horan would use Kik to share child porn images and videos with unidentified users from around the world, most of whom claimed to be young teenagers. He threatened to share an 11-year-old girl’s nude images to her social media if she didn’t send him more graphic photos. In the text exchange between them, this child repeatedly told Horan that she would kill herself. He then continued to coerce her to send more images, the court heard. Horan, of St John’s Crescent, Clondalkin, pleaded guilty to a count each of sexually
exploiting two girls within the State on dates between April 1 and November 23, 2014. He pleaded guilty to two more counts of sexually exploiting a child and one count of distributing child porn on dates in 2015. He further pleaded guilty to possessing child porn at his address on July 11, 2015. He pleaded guilty to three further counts of sexually exploiting female children through Snapchat and Instagram in the State on dates between May 21, 2015 and July 7, 2016. He also pleaded guilty to possessing child porn on a Sony mobile phone at his home on July 7, 2016. He has no previous convictions. In sentencing Horan last January Judge Nolan said Horan had a very unhealthy, insidious and debased sexual interest in children. He said the crimes were all committed for Horan’s indulgence and pleasure and Horan had exploited children in a most horrible way. “He knew what he was doing was wrong. He understood the damage and yet he didn’t stop what he was doing,” he said. Judge Nolan had backdated the sentence to June last year, when Horan went into custody. He had ordered a report from The Probation Service in relation to interventions available to Horan.
fied after detectives used CCTV cameras to track a white VW Crafter van spotted near the scene of the 2016 attack back to Galtymore Road, where Gierlowski lives. In addition detectives used a wild card search of a partial registration provided by neighbours had seen the van parked in the area to identify the van as one registered to
Gierlowski. After his arrest, gardai took a DNA sample from Gierlowski and found it matched various blood and semen samples taken from the two earlier crime scenes. Tests on blood traces on a jacket seized by gardai from Gierlowski’s bedroom in June 2016 found it was the third victim’s blood.