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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
National
Niall O'Connor

Serial sex attacker Robert Melia terrorising Dublin street after release from jail

Serial sex attacker Robert Melia is terrorising a quiet street of houses where he has been staying since his release from prison.

Now locals are so angry that they want him run him out of the area on Jamestown Road, Finglas.

Melia, who is in his 50s, has multiple previous rape allegations over decades - in one he threatened to chop up his victim as he sexually assaulted her.

The horror sex attacker has told authorities that he will stay at a hostel near the Phoenix Park Dublin but instead is in Finglas where he has become the neighbour from hell.

The Irish Mirror spoke to a number of locals, all were too terrified to give their names.

One householder said: "He just turned up here and started roaring and shouting one day - he said he would kick in my door.

"He is in an absolute rage, shouting that he is a member of the Kinahan gang, we are living with our doors and windows locked, all the neighbours here are terrified.

"There is a protest on the street against him on Tuesday evening. I think people just want him gone from the community."

And The Irish Mirror can also reveal that gardai were called to a number of incidents on the same street over the weekend.

As revealed by Dublin Live in May Melia was released from custody and was set to live at a Dublin city hostel.

The beast has three previous convictions for violent sexual assaults on three separate victims in one month in October 1997.

He received a six-year sentence in July 1991, for a rape committed in 1987.

Melia, originally from Shangan Gardens, Ballymun pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in 2015 to charges of false imprisonment, assault causing harm and making threats to kill at the Caulfields Hotel, Dorset Street Lower, Dublin on May 19th, 2013.

One of his victims, Debbie Cole, said in the past that she believed he would automatically reoffend.

She said: "Around this time last year my sister rang me and said the guy who had raped me was back up in court.

“He had tried to attack a woman in Caulfield’s Hotel in Dublin. She jumped out the hotel window to get away from him.

“Then it was in the papers and the judge had referred to him as another Larry Murphy, I thought, ‘This is ridiculous’.

“Every time he’s released from prison, within a short space of time, he’s attacking women again. We have to do something.

“There’s so many rights out there for the criminals but where’s the rights for the victims? They don’t get a voice.”

During his sentencing in 2016 Judge Martin Nolan suspended the last three years of a 10-year sentence on condition Melia be of good behaviour for three years after his release.

He also jailed the father of four for one year for an offence of possessing stolen social welfare cheques at Cappagh Post Office, Finglas on dates in January and February 2013, resulting in an effective eight year sentence.

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