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Dublin Live
Dublin Live
National
Paul Healy

Rapist Simon McGinley tracked down to hideout in Dublin following prison release

This is the moment The Star tracked notorious rape beast Simon McGinley down to his Dublin hideout.

Our exclusive pictures show McGinley (48), who is considered to be one of the worst sexual predators this country has ever seen, living his new life in a west Dublin suburb, following his recent release from prison. The cowardly double-rapist, who was freed from Dublin’s Arbour Hill Prison exactly one month ago today, ran away from this paper’s questions when approached outside his new home yesterday.

McGinley turned his back, put on a face-mask and ran straight for the front entrance of an apartment block as we asked him if he had any apology for his victims. Looking far older than the last public pictures of him in 2009, McGinley was now sporting glasses, greying hair and a beard.

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We observed the dangerous sex offender smoking a vape and talking on the phone as he paced around a west Dublin apartment complex that he has called home for the last number of weeks. McGinley’s new hideout is located in a heavily populated suburb close to a primary school and a busy shopping centre.

The Star has learned that the pervert, who has family living in Dundalk, Co Louth, is hiding out in the capital over his own concerns for his safety, following his high-profile release from prison last month. The pictures of McGinley come after he managed to almost completely conceal his appearance last month - covering up with a mask, hat and hood as he emerged from the gates of Arbour Hill Prison, having served 13 years behind bars.

Notorious rapist, Simon McGinley pictured in West Dublin (Collins Dublin)

McGinley served those 13 years of an overall 21-year sentence for the brutal rape of an 86-year-old woman in her Co Monaghan home in 2008. The infamous rapist was previously sentenced to 12 years in 1998 after pleading guilty to raping a 13-year-old girl in August 1997 - in a well documented court case known as the ‘C Case.’

A nationwide official alert was issued to gardai across the country - informing them of his release, and his criminal background - so that officers can keep an eye on him. Sources say gardai fear that McGinley is a volatile criminal, whose history shows that he is a repeat offender.

The young girl at the centre of the infamous ‘C Case’ against him was involved in a legal battle over whether she was allowed to travel to the UK to have an abortion. Speaking out in 2009, the victim told RTE Radio how the brutal attack left her pregnant and forced her into a succession of care homes and caught at the centre of an infamous legal battle over her right to have an abortion.

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“He ruined my life and I am still coming to terms with that. My life is destroyed,” said the woman. “I never got schooling or anything like that. I don’t know how many times I tried to kill myself but I have a little five-year-old son now so he keeps me going.”

Her ordeal began as a 13-year-old schoolgirl in 1997 when she babysat for McGinley’s children and he insisted on dropping her home afterwards. “He drove past the halting site [where she lived] and I said ‘where are you going?’ and he said ‘I’m going up the road to get matches and smokes’ and then he pulled into the side of the road and dragged me into the back of the van and raped me and started punching me around.

“He did it again. He did it about 20 times that night maybe. I tried to escape. I got out of the van and he ran after me, grabbed me by the throat and threw me back into the back of the van and raped me again and after he finished raping me, he dropped me home, put a knife up to my throat and said if I told anybody he’d kill me and all my family.”

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Dangerous rapist McGinley has also previously been compared to infamous beast Larry Murphy and is considered a highly volatile sexual predator. And he was once deemed a person of interest in the case of missing JoJo Dullard.

During his trial in 2009, Mr Justice Birmingham said he could find no mitigating circumstances in the case. “Rape is always a serious offence but within the spectrum of rapes this, in my view, is at the top of the upper end. This case is just about as bad as it gets,” he said.

He believed McGinley’s alcoholism was at the centre of his offending. Unless his drinking was addressed, “everyone from very young girls to very old ladies will be at risk”. The court had heard that McGinley had previously attended a sex offenders’ programme in jail.

Justice Birmingham added: “It is hard to come to terms with the fact that the same person could be capable of raping a 13-year-old girl and then rape an 86-year-old woman.”

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