‘You get more time for petty crime than rape’ – Victim furious fiend free in three years
Victim hits out at rapist Noel Cowan who attacked unconscious women
Noel Cowan (Pic: Sunday World)
A victim of rapist Noel Cowan is furious he won’t get his sentence reviewed and will be free in just over three years despite multiple convictions for sex crimes.
But she’s determined to channel her anger into campaigning for tougher jail terms for sex offenders.
Cowan, also convicted of sexual assaults on a young girl, claimed both his adult victims were unconscious because of alcohol when he attacked them. The women believe he drugged them in order to recreate sick sexual images of comatose women being raped he’d found on the dark web.
In addition to his sex offences the father of four admitted to possession of diazepam and cannabis and that he used ecstasy, cocaine and powerful sedative Xanax.
In total the 47-year-old former youth football coach with Portadown FC pleaded guilty to three counts of rape, 12 sexual assaults, two sexual assaults on a child, eight counts of possession of indecent images and two drugs charges.
He’ll serve just three and a half years in prison, and the same period on licence.
Sex Beast Noel Cowan,(first left, Tartan Shorts) and a bunch of Northern Ireland loving mates travelled to the Euros in 2016.
One of his victims, who was twice stripped while unconscious, sexually assaulted and photographed by Cowan, she believes after having her drink spiked, learned recently his sentence will not be referred to the Court of Appeal as unduly lenient.
Her request was considered by a senior PSNI officer on behalf of the DPP. The review acknowledged the severity of Cowan’s crimes and their impact but found the sentence was within the range the court could have imposed.
“You look at other sentences for petty crimes and they’re longer than this,” she told the Sunday World this week.
“The jails are overrun by petty criminals while paedophiles, who destroy lives, are being held by the hand. Noel is loving life in jail, hiding away from what he’s done.
“I’m angry about his sentence because it’s nowhere near enough, but there’s nothing more we can do about that so I’m going to gather my information and get help to look at changing the law.”
The prolific sex offender, who was pictured and interviewed on TV as part of the Green and White Army backing Northern Ireland at Euro 2016 in Paris, was caught in September 2020 when the PSNI were alerted to suspicious internet activity. That led officers to the images of a ten-year-old girl he’d sexually assaulted under the guise of a game.
She was too young at the time to realise what he was doing to her but her victim impact statement, read to Craigavon Crown Court at his sentencing last month, revealed she now suffers from paranoia and panic attacks, has lost trust in adults, and the assaults have also devastated her parents.
Cowan, of Russell Street, Armagh, refused to give police the passcode to his phone for two years, but when officers did access it they found the sick images of his attacks on his two adult victims, both of whom knew him. He had raped one of the women three times.
His second victim believes his guilty plea, for which he was given a 25 per cent reduction in a starting sentence of nine years, was a deliberate move to stop the full horror of his crimes coming out in court.
“Noel believed he was a pillar of the community and a lot of people knew him but he will get his comeuppance when he gets out of jail because he’ll never be able to show his face again,” the victim said.
“And by the time he comes out of jail I believe other women will have come forward.
“Will another woman who has been around him start thinking there were times she woke up and didn’t remember last night? I didn’t remember. It’s only afterwards you sit and think ‘oh God, what did he do to me?’
“For years he’s been hiding who he really was from the people around him and the football club. There were stories over the years about him having women’s pants in his pockets, and pictures of women’s underwear on his phone.
“I also wonder why he was so interested in kids’ sports.
“And we know he had another phone which the police now have, and he’s refusing to give them the passcode to it. If he’s got nothing to hide why won’t he give them the code?”
She plans to seek the help of politicians in looking at the severity of sentencing for rape, and to get on with her life.
“I will start by getting the information about sentences because I can’t do anything more about this case, but I could help other people.
“And I’m also trying to move on. I’m not going to sit and dwell on this and let him win. I’m not going to let this wreck my head or take over my life.
“But I’ll make sure the world knows what he did,” says his victim.
