‘Evil’ man jailed for ‘vicious’ park attack and threat to rape woman in the Midlands

A man who subjected a woman to a “vicious” and sustained beating, and threatened to rape her while she was walking in a  town park in the Midlands, has been jailed for three years and three months, with no portion of his sentence suspended.

Michal Godla (35), of 1 Annaly Court, Longford, had beaten his victim “into submission”, only releasing his grip when she told him she’d “go with him” and let him do “whatever he wanted”, according to a victim impact statement provided to Longford Circuit Court this week.

“My attacker did not let me go. I escaped,” the woman stressed in her statement, which was quoted by Judge Kenneth Connolly.

“He showed me no mercy and only released his grip when he thought I had capitulated and he had beaten me into submission.”

She highlighted to the court that this “was not a common assault”, but a sustained and “vicious” attack from behind - “an attack intended to beat his prey into submission”.

“I witnessed evil that night,” she said.

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The incident occurred in the early hours of August 7, 2023 at the Albert Reynolds Peace Park, locally known as The Mall, in Longford town.

Mr Godla appeared in court charged with one count of assault causing harm, and one count of threatening to kill or cause serious harm to his victim, with the latter charge referring to a threat to rape the woman. In January of this year, Mr Godla entered a guilty plea on a full facts basis to the assault charge, with the state withdrawing the second charge.

The woman, who was suffering from insomnia at around 1am on the date in question, decided to walk in the Longford town park, where she said she had always felt safe.

Leading evidence in court, Shane Geraghty BL, prosecuting, said the woman had pulled on a pair of rain trousers and a raincoat over her pyjamas. She said she had her hood up and a tissue in her hand as her nose was running.

Mr Godla, when interviewed by Gardaí, said he had been drinking a Slovakian tea with 78% alcohol level. He also said he’d been “smoking a joint” on his balcony and, when he went to bed, the room was spinning, so he decided to go for a walk.

As the pair met on the path, the woman said she felt apprehensive at first, and kept her head down. She was blowing her nose as she passed him, and felt a sense of relief once he had passed.

The next thing she felt was a blow to the right side of her head and temple, as Mr Godla struck her from behind. She was stunned, the court heard, and her glasses fell off.

Mr Godla then struck her again, knocking her to the ground. She shouted at him to stop but said he kept hitting her. The accused, who remained standing, grabbed her by the jacket and pulled her upright, before punching her again on the right temple.

After that punch, she landed on the ground and Mr Godla pulled her up again, striking her in the same way and knocking her to the ground again. This happened about four times, she said.

Mr Godla continued to relentlessly beat the woman, even after she pleaded with him, “I’m a woman - a mother. You wouldn’t do this to your own mother.”

She was unsure of the number of blows she received, but said they were all with a closed fist. He then told her “I want to rape you”, and she pretended to submit, saying she’d go with him and let him do what he wanted, but that she needed to find her glasses first.

The Slovakian national then released her and started looking for her glasses. It was then that the woman fled towards the exit, before calling her husband and Gardaí.

The woman was later taken to Midlands Regional Hospital Mullingar, where she was treated for multiple bruises and injuries to her head, face and body. She also received a CT scan, which revealed a bleed on her brain.

A medical report furnished to the court stated that the woman suffered serious psychological trauma and had been deemed unfit to return to work for at least 18 to 24 months due to PTSD as a result of the assault. The report stated that the woman is “literally afraid of her own shadow”.

Mr Godla, when arrested in January of last year, told Gardaí that he thought he was being attacked, that the person he met was a man, and that he needed to defend himself.

“I just saw a hand up. I thought it was a man going to hit me. I went to defend myself,” he told Detective Gada Orla Geraghty.

He said he hit the woman and she was “KO’d” on the ground. He said he proceeded to hit her six “light slaps”, then “two harder slaps”, and only realised it was a woman when she woke up and screamed.

“I tried to help her find her glasses but she ran away. I shouted at her to come back, I’d ring an ambulance for her,” he said.

He saw the news on Facebook after a friend of his commented on a post about the incident, and said he was “waiting for Gardaí” to arrive. However, twice between August and his arrest in January 2024, he left the country to go to his native Slovakia.

He had also googled the definition of assault to see what the penalty was, saying, “I’m brown, not white. I was afraid people wouldn’t believe me.”

Phone records showed he had booked a train ticket to Dublin and back the day after the assault, so he could travel to the capital and give the clothes he was wearing to a homeless man.

He didn’t agree he had used the word “rape” when talking to the woman, but accepted he had done so when the charge was put to him.

Mr Godla has been living in Ireland for 21 years and has never been employed. He received a carer's allowance as he cares for his mother who has Parkinson’s Disease. He has four previous convictions, including three for drugs-related offences, and one for a public order offence.

Dara Foynes SC, for Mr Golda, described the accused as “a simple sort of chap” who lacked sophistication. She said he didn’t attempt to go after the woman when she fled and that he accepted he had made some sort of threat.

“He had difficulty with the allegation that he had used the word ‘rape’, but it is accepted,” she said.

Mr Godla also wrote a letter of apology to the victim, and was willing to hand in €2,000, with the possibility of more should he be given a chance. The victim, however, had “no interest” in accepting the money.

Judge Connolly noted the “ferocity of the violence and sustained nature of the attack”, as well as the “very, very chilling threat to commit a very serious sexual assault” on the woman among the many aggravating factors.

"This was not a single punch or scuffle-type assault. There was a complete lack of provocation or context in this case, so much so I find it hard to understand what happened at all,” he said.

He described Mr Godla’s insistence that he thought the victim was a man as “fiction”, indicating that if the victim were a man, it would still have been a serious assault.

He set a headline sentence of four years and eight months imprisonment, noting that the maximum he could give was five years as the offence occurred before November 2023 when the tariff was increased to ten years for section three assault.

Noting a number of mitigating factors, including an early plea of guilt and the lack of previous relevant convictions, he reduced that sentence by 17 months, imposing three years and three months on Mr Godla.

However, he declined to suspend any of that sentence due to Mr Godla’s failure to address his issues with alcohol, cannabis, and the fact that he had stopped attending counselling following a “personality clash” with his counsellor.

“He has not made any significant efforts to rehabilitate himself,” said Judge Connolly, adding that he didn’t see any “legal justification” to suspend any portion of the sentence.