Sex creep blessed with intelligence but no common decency gets three year probation

Craigavon Crown Court heard that because sports science student Brendan McMullan wasn’t brave enough to talk to women when sober, the 21-year-old “would use alcohol as a coping mechanism in order to permit him to engage in the very limited contact he had with the opposite sex.”

However, as Judge Patrick Lynch QC made clear in his sentencing remarks on Tuesday, “it’s perfectly clear, to put it colloquially, you are an obnoxious drunk…when you have alcohol taken on board you seem to have an attributed sense of entitlement so far as females in your company are concerned — that is a very, very worrying aspect of this case.”

Despite having a “remarkably high” IQ of 145, sports science student McMullan obviously didn’t have the sense to know how to behave himself at a Lurgan house party on February 2, 2020.

Instead, was “making a total nuisance” of himself, trying to be flirtatious with the two women he was soon to assault, asking one of the victims if he could kiss her while touching the other victim’s arm.

Prosecuting counsel Nicola Auret outlined how Victim B started to feel tired so she had gone upstairs to sleep in her friend’s bedroom at around 3am, putting a pair of pyjamas over her underwear before going to sleep in the double bed.

Victim A, said the lawyer, remained in the kitchen for about another hour before going into the living room with the intention of sleeping on the sofa.

“She lay down on one of the sofas,” said Ms Auret. “The defendant was lying on a nearby sofa; he reached across and touched her knee, sliding his hand up towards her groin. She removed his hand and told him to stop but he repeated this three or four times, each time she told him no.

“The other males in the room told him to stop. Eventually she changed places with one of the other males.”

McMullan was told that he could sleep in a bed upstairs and a short time later, the home owner “saw him asleep on top of the covers in her room and tried, but was unable, to wake him.”

“This was the same room as [Victim B] who was awoken out of a deep sleep by the defendant.....who was leaning over her on the bed, with his right hand down her pyjamas and pants, touching her vagina.” Screaming at McMullan “what the f*** are you doing” she pushed him off, before running to another room to tell her friend and eventually, the creep was put out of the house.

The police were alerted to the incident and they arrested and questioned McMullan later the same day but he denied the offences, claiming that he didn’t touch either girl.

“In his second interview he added that one of the girls in the house came downstairs and started calling him a rapist and he continued to deny the offences and claim to have a clear recollection of the night,” said Ms Auret.

Lodging a plea in mitigation, defence counsel Gavyn Cairns said McMullan was “ashamed,” that his actions which were “an abhorrence for him” and also that the incident has had “a nuclear effect” on the defendant and his family who are “disgusted by his actions”.

Submitting that McMullan “was a man of some promise; perhaps might still be a man of some promise,” the lawyer said his studies at UUJ “were torpedoed” due to the charges becoming public knowledge.

Mr Cairns added: “He characterised his drinking at the time in a very candid way. He felt there were some inadequacies subjectively in his own mind and he would use alcohol as a coping mechanism in order to permit him to engage in the very limited contact he had with the opposite sex.”

Judge Lynch imposed the three year probation order along with a seven year Sexual Offences Prevention Order.