A former soldier has been jailed for ten years for repeatedly raping a woman he met through the Tinder dating app.
Niall Kennedy, of Standhouse Lawns, Newbridge, Co Kildare, was convicted last year of twelve counts of rape on eleven different occasions.
Not long after meeting on Tinder, the trial heard Niall Kennedy and the woman began a relationship, but she wanted to end things after he started turning up outside her workplace and arriving uninvited to nights out with her friends.
She was in her early 20s at the time and said she found the level of communication “unbearable.” He was constantly texting her and demanding she send him photos.
After telling her to come to his house in August 2017, the court heard he raped her while calling her names and telling her she deserved it.
The jury convicted him of twelve counts of rape and he was jailed for ten years today. The judge said he carried out a “cynical and cold campaign of rape” for which he had shown no remorse.
In her victim impact statement, the woman spoke about the day she decided to “fight back” and told Kennedy he now appeared “indifferent” to her.
She also described her treatment by his lawyers during the trial as “appalling.”
Reporting by Frank Greaney
