A man has been ordered to sign the police sex offenders register after he admitted raping and assaulting a woman on St Patrick’s Day.
As Maurice Ayres stood in the dock of Antrim Crown Court, defence KC Eoghan Devlin asked for counts one and two to be put to the 29-year-old again.
Accordingly Ayres entered guilty pleas to charges of rape and causing the victim actual bodily harm on March 17 this year.
At an earlier hearing Ayres, of no fixed abode, Belfast, admitted three other charges relating to two breaches of a Violent Offences Prevention Order (VOPO) committed between March 12-18 this year and failing to tell police he had been freed from prison.
None of the alleged facts were opened in court on Tuesday, but during an earlier hearing, a police officer outlined how a member of the public contacted police to report “that they believed there was a female being raped” in a communal area of a property “based on what he was hearing her say”.
“He gave a statement where the female could be heard saying stop,” the court heard.
When police attended the scene Ayres was identified as the man involved while the complainant was so intoxicated “she was incoherent”, but when officers saw she had suffered facial injuries, she was taken to hospital.
The VOPO charges disclose that Ayres stayed away from his address without permission and was in contact with the rape victim, which was a further breach of his VOPO.
Following Ayres’ confessions in court on Tuesday, Mr Devlin said “obviously there’s an application for a probation report” and in the meantime the defence would also consider whether other reports could assist the court.
Judge Alistair Devlin remanded the accused back into custody until January 10 and ordered him to sign the police sex offenders register.