Notorious double rapist Simon McGinley back on road in battered jeep after prison release

The Sunday World tracked McGinley down to an estate in the Co. Louth town early yesterday and can reveal he is now living in an apartment with two women.

Sporting a tight new haircut and flat cap, the 48-year-old appeared stunned as he sat in the driver seat of a beat-up Hyundai outside the property and our reporter approached and called him by name.

“Simon, I wanted to ask you whether you’re to comply with the conditions of the sex offenders’ register,” I asked.

But instead of offering any response, the man nicknamed ‘The Beast’ threw the car into reverse and as he began to back away at speed, his female passenger yelled: “You better not be putting us in the paper. If you do, I’ll report you to the Guards.”

Our approach to McGinley for comment came just days after the recently freed sex fiend appeared in court charged with breaching the Sex Offenders Act.

McGinley, who left Arbour Hill prison on September 14, was brought to Dundalk District Court on Wednesday charged over an alleged breach of the Act.

He was granted bail under strict conditions, including that he stays at a Co. Louth address and obeys a curfew from 10pm to 7am.

He was also ordered to provide a mobile phone number to Gardai and make himself available to officers when they call to his address.

Registered sex offenders are required to give Gardaí their address within 10 days of release and notify them if there are any changes.

McGinley walked from Arbour Hill prison in September after serving time for the shocking rape of a pensioner.

His release came at the conclusion of a 21-year sentence imposed in 2009 for the sexual attack on the 85-year-old woman in Monaghan.

The sex beast’s previous rape of a 13-year-old girl sparked the C Case legal battle over whether she was allowed to travel to the UK for an abortion.

McGinley was told at his sentencing hearing for raping the pensioner that he will be under post-release supervision for 12 years.

When passing sentence in 2009, Justice George Birmingham said the case was one of the worst he had heard, considering the age and frailty of the victim.

Then aged 35, McGinley was found guilty by a jury of raping the elderly woman on June 16, 2008.

He had denied the charges.

The woman known as ‘Miss C’ was also in court for McGinley’s sentence hearing, where the daughter of the elderly woman outlined the devastating impact of the rape on her mother.

“The most heart-breaking thing is the loss of joy from our mother’s life,” said the victim’s daughter.

The elderly woman had been unfit to give evidence during the trial due to her worsening dementia, but a statement she gave at a previous District Court hearing in October 2008 was read to the jury.

A drunken McGinley had raped her repeatedly during the night and put his hand over her mouth at one point when she cried out.

Judge Birmingham said the crime was “about as bad as it gets” and at the upper end of the spectrum.

The one place that an elderly lady should be able to feel safe and family members should feel she was safe was in her home, he said.

It was also heard how cowardly McGinley had wanted to serve his time in Arbour Hill because he was “deeply worried” about his safety behind bars.

In 2009, ‘Miss C’ spoke to RTÉ radio about the brutal attack by McGinley that left her pregnant and sent to various care homes.

She was also caught at the centre of an infamous legal battle over her right to have an abortion when a decision to send her to the UK was opposed by pro-life activists.

“He ruined my life and I am still coming to terms with that. My life is destroyed,” she said.

“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,” she said at the time.

She spoke about living in constant fear and receiving death threats.

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.”

She only discovered she was pregnant when a foster mother took her to the doctor because she kept getting sick.

“Next morning, I woke up and there was all social workers at the table,” she said.