A man has been convicted of raping two European women who were working as prostitutes in Ireland.

Gheorghe Goidan (46) contacted the women via the “escortsireland.ie” website and met them separately in hotel rooms. He then pulled a knife on them and threatened them before repeatedly assaulting and raping them.

He had pleaded not guilty to rape and sexual assault at a hotel in Portlaoise on September 7, 2017. Goidan, with an address at The Plaza Apartments, Tyrellstown, Dublin had also denied rape, oral rape and anal rape of a second woman at the Maldron Hotel in Galway city on the same day.

After a trial at the Central Criminal Court a jury of six men and six women returned guilty verdicts on all counts. Goidan had previously entered guilty pleas to counts of robbing the two women.

During the trial the jury heard that both women, who had not known one another, were from the Czech Republic and had both come to Ireland to work as prostitutes. They advertised their services on the escortsireland.ie website and booked themselves into the respective hotel rooms.

The first woman met Goidan, who had booked an appointment through the website, at 11am. Goidan pulled a knife and threatened to cut the woman if she didn't do what he asked.

He told her to hand over any money she had. He then sexually assaulted and raped her. After the attack he took a photo of her national identity card and threatened her in the Czech language and told her to leave the country.

He left the hotel room with her mobile phone and laptop and the woman contacted a friend and told her what had happened.

Within 12 hours, Goidan made a second booking on “escortireland.ie” and met up with the second victim. He pulled a knife and told her he would cut her.

He took her money, mobile phone and cash.

Both women told the jury they were afraid Goidan was going to kill them during the attacks.

They both identified a suspect on CCTV footage and Gardaí identified the vehicle he drove away in and used CCTV to track his route to a toll booth on the M6 motorway.

Investigators then retrieved the registration of the car and linked the car back to Goidan.

Ms Justice Tara Burns remanded Goidan in custody to July 15, 2019 for sentence. She thanked the jurors for their work on a “particularly difficult case” and excused them from jury duty for ten years.

Online Editors