Brisbane's Caxton Hotel
AN Irish nurse was this morning sentenced by Brisbane District Court to two and a half years for raping another woman at a city hotel in 2009.
Anne Marie O’Loughlin (25), originally from Offaly, was convicted in December 2010 on two counts of digital rape and one of deprivation of liberty at the Caxton Hotel, near Brisbane CBD, on November 29, 2009.
She was found not guilty on a fourth charge of sexual assault.
In delivering this morning’s sentence, Brisbane District Court Judge David Reid told the court that O’Loughlin would be eligible for parole on March 3 next year, the day of her 27th birthday.
In his sentencing remarks Judge Reid described O’Loughlin’s attack as one of “persistent sexual aggression”.
The nurse – who is reported to have wept when the sentence was delivered – was accompanied in court by her parents and representatives of the Irish Australian Support Association of Queensland (IASAQ).
Last year, the five-day trial had heard that O’Loughlin and the 34-year-old victim had kissed for three minutes in a toilet cubicle, but that the victim did not consent to digital penetration.
The court also heard O’Loughlin claim that while she could not remember kissing the woman it was possible, but that it was out of character for her to do anything else without the woman’s consent.
The victim had left the bathroom and told her partner that she had suffered an attack, at which point the police were called.
O’Loughlin’s legal team are preparing an appeal of the conviction.
By Luke O’Neill
