Sophie, not her real name, was a student at Queen’s University Belfast when she was sexually assaulted and has now spoken out in the hopes other victims will pursue justice
A woman endured a violent sex attack and left traumatised by a date she met on Tinder.
Sophie, not her real name, was a had been a student at Queen’s University Belfast when she initially engaged in consensual sex with Fearghall Mulgrew, before he bit her on her face and body and began committing sexual acts on her without her consent.
She suffered injuries and multiple bruises from the encounter in 2021. Sophie self-referred herself to The Rowan, a sexual assault referral centre in Northern Ireland, and Northern Irish police. On February 5 last year at Laganside Court, Mulgrew, of Stewartstown, was found guilty of sexual assault by penetration and five counts of assault occasioning actual bodily harm.
He was sentenced to 22 months, eight months in custody. He will remain on the sex offenders register for 10 years.
Sophie told BelfastLive that she wanted to encourage others who have suffered sexual assault to seek justice. She added: “I had known him for a little bit before the incident happened. The night of, he had said he wanted to do it his way.
“He wanted to show me how he liked to do it, which was rougher. Straight from the get-go, he slapped me across my face. He pulled my clothes down. We had discussed a safe word which very quickly went out the window.
“He started to bite me, on my face, on my mouth and on my nose. I told him I didn’t like the biting. He bit me everywhere, on quite a few different places. He bit me on my private area to the point where I had to kick him off me.
“He choked me and held my head down on him until I threw up. The whole time I was saying ‘stop doing that’, and that I didn’t like it. He just laughed the whole time. He found it funny.
“When I looked at myself, I was covered in marks. He just wasn’t fazed and he laughed and said ‘that’s going to stay on you until you get home’. It was like he was proud of it. He turned me around and carried on. I feel like at that point I had the mentality of ‘ok eventually he is going to stop’ or ‘this will be over’.
“When it didn’t and we were near the end, he decided he wanted to ‘do something for me’, and he did even though I said I didn’t want it. It was really rough. He was punching me and it was so painful. I told him a few times that it really hurt and to stop it. In the end, he stopped because he was annoyed that I wasn’t enjoying it.
“He rolled over and went to sleep. I waited for him to be asleep a bit more, and then I left the room.” Sophie said after the incident, she was “in shock and refused to accept what had happened.”
“I was kind of on autopilot after but it took a good few months for it to really sink in,” she added. “I had got really low and didn’t want to be here. My mum was really worried, and that is what really motivated me.
“I didn’t want to be the reason that my mum was so worried about everything. I didn’t want to be in that place. It wasn’t nice. I was affected in everything, I couldn’t do anything. I felt like this was something I could do, to help me move forward, to bring some sort of justice and repercussions for him.
“I reported it through The Rowan centre, so I didn’t make the first contact with the police, they reached out to me. From that point, it was very clear that the police were there for me. There was never a time where I thought they didn’t believe me, or that they were looking for ways that I am lying, or trying to catch me out.
“The whole process was geared towards making sure I was comfortable and moving forward with it, it was good. The detectives were really accommodating and I know it wasn’t easy because I was in London at the time. It wasn’t smooth sailing, it was definitely hard, but I feel like their help really made the process easier to take on.”
She continued: “I am doing a lot better today. I am really in a much better place and feel like I am finally getting back to what I used to be when I was first out in Belfast. It is still a journey and I am still with various mental health teams and talking to different people about things but I am learning how to deal with it. Every step is a bit more difficult when you uncover something else, but I am doing good. I thought, if I can use what’s happened to me to encourage other people to come forward then that is a good thing that can come out of it.
“I might have been in a low place and it might have affected me, but I could potentially help someone feel like they can do it before they get to that point and get them the help top support them early on. Or encourage them to just do something. I also think it is important to show that consent isn’t black and white. That is important. My story, and what happened to me wasn’t black and white. If I can do it, report and get an outcome, then nobody else is any different.”