HENRY ONYEKWE: CARER WHO FORCED FEMALE COL­LEAGUE TO HAVE SEX WITH HIM IN FRONT OF A DEMEN­TIA PATIENT AT A NURS­ING HOME JAILED

The 36-year-old, an Ulster Uni­versity gradu­ate who is in the pro­cess of com­plet­ing a PhD, admit­ted sexual assault and unlaw­fully caus­ing a per­son to engage in a sexual act.

The vic­tim repor­ted mul­tiple attacks to police in May 2023. On one occa­sion, Onyekwe asked her for a hug while she was tend­ing to a patient then groped her bot­tom, breasts and gen­it­als through her uni­form while for­cibly kiss­ing her, des­pite her pleas for him to stop.

He then “fol­lowed her and kept touch­ing her” while the patient was in the room.

As the vic­tim tried to give the patient a shower, Onyekwe pinned her against a bath­room wall and exposed him­self, before for­cing the woman to per­form a sex act on him.

She made clear this was unwanted, but he per­sisted and asked if he could per­form a sex act on her, a request she refused.

“She closed her eyes and did not phys­ic­ally res­ist because she was scared she was going to be raped,” the pro­sec­u­tion said.

The sexual assault place in front of an “extremely vul­ner­able” demen­tia patient.

On another occa­sion, Onyekwe again asked her for a hug “because he was depressed”, before grabbing her bot­tom, push­ing her against a wall and kiss­ing her.

He then exposed him­self to the vic­tim and again forced her to per­form a sex act on him.

SWABBED

After report­ing the incid­ents to police, she was swabbed and her cloth­ing was taken for test­ing.

Onyekwe gave no-com­ment answers dur­ing a police inter­view after he was arres­ted.

The mat­ter had been lis­ted for con­test before he pleaded guilty, spar­ing the vic­tim the ordeal of giv­ing evid­ence.

A defence law­yer said there had been a three-year delay in the case com­ing to court and Onyekwe had been assessed as pos­ing a low like­li­hood of reoffend­ing.

They added: “This is undoubtedly a very ser­i­ous mat­ter. The ques­tion will be whether justice is met by way of an imme­di­ate prison sen­tence. A sus­pen­ded sen­tence will pro­tect the pub­lic for a fur­ther amount of time.”

Reject­ing the plea for a sus­pen­ded sen­tence, Dis­trict Judge Anne Mar­shall gave a with­er­ing assess­ment of Onyekwe’s con­duct.

She told him: “There are so many aggrav­at­ing factors. This happened at work in the pres­ence of a demen­tia patient who was exposed to this trau­matic act, and there is no indic­a­tion of remorse.”

“You described it to pro­ba­tion as a moment of mad­ness, which is some­what of an under­state­ment. You were relent­less in your pur­suit of your own sexual grat­i­fic­a­tion.”

“You also told pro­ba­tion you were wor­ried about the case hav­ing an impact on you get­ting your teeth done and going to Amer­ica.”

“The vic­tim suffered fear and emo­tional dis­tress and now has anxi­ety, depres­sion and panic attacks, for which she requires med­ic­a­tion.

“It has also had a sig­ni­fic­ant fin­an­cial impact on her as she feels unable to return to work at the home.”

Onyekwe, of Bal­ly­go­martin Road in Bel­fast, was handed a five-month jail sen­tence, a fiveyear Sexual Offences Pre­ven­tion Order and was placed on the sex offend­ers register for seven years.

He was gran­ted bail pending the out­come of an appeal against his sen­tence.

@ Press Reader