Deported Lithuanian man faces rape trial

Stasys Baranauskas appeared at Craigavon Magistrates Court on foot of a European arrest warrant just over two years since his former co-accused 26-year-old Darius Porcikas was handed an 18-year jail term. Baranauskas, of no fixed address, faces nine charges including GBH with intent on his male victim and other charges of actual bodily harm, rape, attempted rape, false imprisonment and multiple sexual assaults against the female victim on July 13, 2011. No bail application was lodged so Baranauskas, who did not speak during the hearing, was remanded to custody to appear again next week. Previous courts heard that having been interviewed by cops a few weeks after the attack in the early hours of July 13 2011 where he flatly refused to answer police questions or cooperate with the investigation, Lithuanian national Baranouskas was released pending further enquiries. Those enquires uncovered his DNA in a glass he had been drinking from in the victims Lurgan flat but when he was ordered back for further questioning, Baranouskas had already fled. During the three week trial in May 2014, both Porcikas and his rape victim claimed Baranouskas was guilty but while the woman claimed both were equally as guilty of raping her and beating her boyfriend to an unconscious bloody pulp with a cricket bat, Porcikas claimed the missing Baranouskas was the instigator and main aggressor in the harrowing incident. The beaten man could not say what happened as the attack was so severe, he cannot remember it. At the end of his trial, it took the jury less than two hours to unanimously convict Porcikaw of a total of 12 offences including rape, attempted rape, sexual assault, inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent and false imprisonment. During the hearing, the jury heard how the incident began when Porcikas, Baranouskas and a third man, 25-year-old Vytautas Mikulinas were involved in a fight with the man outside the woman’s flat but while Mikulinas left, the other two smashed their way in as the couple lay in bed, repeatedly smashing him over the head with the bat, even when he was clearly unconscious and defenceless, “laughing” at the woman as she tried to intervene to save him.