A woman told how she feared that she was going to die, and her daughter would have to come and identify her body, as she recalled how a man attacked and sexually assaulted her while out walking her dog in a park in north Cork town.
The woman told how she was walking her dog in St Colman’s Park in Fermoy at 6.30pm on November 7th, 2021, when the accused, Vadim Vestes, came up behind her. He put his hand around her neck and mouth and pulled her to ground and climbed on top of her.
Vestes (28), who pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault on the woman on the day in question, knelt on her arms, pinning her to ground. He forced a woolly item which turned out to be a hat into her mouth to stop her screaming as he proceeded to sexually assault her.
The woman told Vestes’ sentencing hearing at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork on Monday that she feared she was going to die. The thought of her daughter having to identify her body gave her a renewed strength and she managed to free one arm.
“I thought my little girl would have to come to the park to identify my body and with all my strength I fought back. I got one hand free, and I scratched him on the face and bit him on the thumb and I screamed for help and thank God, the boys in the park heard me.”
The woman said Vestes got up and walked away when he heard people coming.
Gardaí and the medical emergency services were alerted to the attack and the woman was taken to the Sexual Assault Treatment Unit at the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital, where she was medically examined, and samples were taken for the Garda investigation.
Det Garda David Barry told how gardaí set up an incident room at Fermoy Garda Station and began a major investigation where officers harvested hours of CCTV footage from the area as well as carrying out door to door inquiries and taking witness statements.
He said that as a result of the intensive Garda investigation, detectives identified Vestes, a meat factory worker with an address at Clancy Street, Fermoy. He was arrested on November 9th, 2021, and questioned about the crime where he made admissions and accepted the victim’s version of events.
Det Garda Barry said that gardaí carried out DNA testing on scrapings taken from under the woman’s nails and found that these matched Vestes’ DNA; while they also recovered a woolly hat from Vestes’ home on which they found a DNA match with that of the victim of the assault.
He said that Vestes was a Moldovan national with dual Moldovan/Romanian citizenship, and had come to Ireland on December 29th, 2020, less than three weeks after he was released from serving a prison sentence in his native Moldova.
He said that gardaí had liaised through Interpol with the Moldovan authorities and established that Vestes had served three years for the rape of a minor in Moldova in 2016, while had also convictions for burglary and possession of drugs for his own personal use.
Defence counsel, Seamus Roche SC, said that Vestes had changed solicitors and his current legal team had only received details of his previous convictions just before court. He applied to have the matter adjourned to allow him to obtain a psychological report on Vestes and his offending.
Mr Justice Paul McDermott said that he was concerned, given that Vestes had a previous conviction for a sexual offence, and it was important that the court would have as much information as possible about his motivation for such offending before sentencing him.
He said he was also anxious to have some report on Vestes as it would help inform the court as to the risk he posed of reoffending and his prospects of rehabilitation. He also ordered a probation report on the accused before adjourning the matter until June 12th for sentence.
