Naming rapist Jonathan Moran has brought ‘great comfort’, says Bláthnaid Raleigh – The Irish Times

One woman, who waived her anonymity so her rapist’s name could be used, said it was a “great comfort” to her that people now knew what her attacker had done.

Bláthnaid Raleigh, of Mullingar, County Westmeath, was speaking at the Criminal Court in Dublin after Jonathan (Johnny) Moran, of Tower View, Mullingar, was sentenced to nine years in prison, with the final year suspended, at the Central Criminal Court for the rape in Galway in 2019.

She said that in the period following the attack, Moran, who had pleaded not guilty, “walked around the area with his head held high, continued to play rugby, socialise at his rugby club and go about his work”.

Ms Raleigh said people now know exactly what “he was hiding during that time when I was locked up, unable to do anything and completely isolated in the aftermath, and that is a huge comfort to me.”

One of the most traumatic aspects of what happened was that Moran’s life “continued to be completely normal” while her own was “completely destroyed” and everything she knew and loved was taken from her.

Ms Raleigh was 21 when she was raped by Moran after meeting him at the Galway Arts Festival and walking with others back to a house where he was staying. Moran played club rugby with Raleigh’s brothers in Mullingar and was known to her. She walked with him from the house to a shed outside where the assault took place, in which Moran used a bottle.

She told reporters she decided to waive her right to anonymity because it might help or comfort others. “They might say, ‘She’s like me, or looks like me, or has the same lifestyle as me.'”

Ms Raleigh said she believed it was important for society to know Moran’s name.

“When you think of sexual violence, you think of older, scary men. This guy was young, he was 21 at the time, like any of our peers, and I think as a society we need to be aware that it’s not that far off, that these crimes are happening in our area, that they’re young people too… younger people can’t acknowledge the fact that these crimes are happening in their circles too.”

In passing sentence on Moran, Judge Tony Hunt warned of the importance of consent, which Ms Raleigh said was “a big problem among young people”.

She added: “I think we have the misconception that we are so well informed about the issue of consent. I don’t think that’s the case.”

In her own case, however, she did not believe that “education would make a difference. I believe that some people just do bad things. Some people are just bad.”

What was important to her about the verdict against Moran was that it confirmed her conviction regarding the incident that had happened to her and meant that he could no longer avoid confronting his actions.

“Sometimes you think, was it really that bad? Why can’t I put this behind me?” she said, but the sentence Moran received confirmed that what had happened to her was bad.

“That is a consolation to you,” added Mrs. Raleigh.