Daughter of rapist taxi driver Raymond Shorten says ‘that man is nothing to us’

Last week Raymond Shorten (50) from Melrose Crescent in Clondalkin, West Dublin was found guilty of rape and anal rape over incidents in which he attacked two women who ended up in his taxi in 2022.

Shorten had pleaded not guilty to the rape and anal rape of a 19-year-old woman on June 25, 2022 and to the rape of another woman, then aged 20, a couple of months later on August 9.

Now his daughter, Nikita, has described the devastating effect of her dad’s actions.

Writing in a public post on Facebook on Father’s day, she said: “Father’s Day and grieving for a da that we once had before we ever knew what he was.

“I am so proud of me my brothers and sisters that have gone through the hardest thing we have ever had to go through; the news, the posts, the TikToks, everything we have to see and while going through even more behind closed doors.

“I’m so happy for the girls who got the justice they deserve, this has nothing to do with us and that man is nothing to us.

“I am grateful for the amazing family I have and the most amazing woman who raised us. Peace,” Nikita concluded.

Shorten is currently in custody where he awaits sentencing after being convicted of two separate rapes last week.

Shorten denied the allegations of rape and said he had consensual sexual contact with both women, which they initiated. They both strongly denied consenting to sex when Shorten’s account was put to them by his defence counsel.

In her evidence, the first woman said she drank five pints of cider, an amount she wasn’t used to, on the night of June 25, 2022.

She described gaps in her memory of her journey home. She recalled waking up in the front passenger seat of a car in the early hours, with a man driving.

She said she felt very dazed and her eyes were heavy.

She said the man moved her to the back seat where he raped her anally and vaginally. She said it was very sore and she was falling in and out of consciousness.

When he finished, the man returned to the driver’s seat, then dropped her near her home.

In the years leading up to and after he raped two women in his cab, Shorten regularly ranted on social media about taxi safety issues, gay people and refugees.

Despite his own future actions, Shorten used Facebook to warn the public about other taxi drivers on the city’s streets.

After gardaí posted a warning about a “bogus taxi” stopped by DMR Traffic in 2016, he wrote:“Not properly regulated.

“No check points and even us drivers have spotted a lot of bogey taxis but can do f**k all about it.”

In another story, in January 18, 2021 relating to how gardaí were looking to contact a taxi driver in the Killinarden area of Tallaght, Shorten sneered: “Jesus they narrowed it down… there a (sic) hundreds of Toyota Prius taxis…why don’t they contact Tallaght cabs…cars are tracked with history of there (sic) journey.”

In a June 2015 story relating to how teachers were “still afraid they’ll be fired because they’re homosexual” in the Irish independent, creep Shorten posted: “I won’t say nothing if there (sic) lesbian.”

He also commented about Al Porter after a story appeared about the comedian walking free from court after a charge for sexually assaulting a young man at a Dublin venue was dropped, in 2019.

Shorten’s response was: “It’s about time…never a doubt….what a great guy. I’m so happy for him.”

Meanwhile, a woman targeted for sex by Shorten after he picked her up drunk has warned it is likely more victims are out there.

The woman, who was a witness at the 50-year-old rapist’s trial, was described in court as one of three women who had consensual sex with the predator in his taxi.

However, at the weekend she told the Sunday World: “I wouldn’t have done it sober at all. I don’t find him attractive — he’s double my age.

“I felt very ashamed and very down in myself after for even agreeing to that, with the state I was in.

“God knows who else he’s done this to.”

We reveal that predator Shorten has also been convicted in connection with a separate sex attack earlier this year, over which he is yet to be sentenced.

For legal reasons, we cannot disclose further details of that offence.

“I don’t want my name in the paper because I didn’t go forward with my case,” the woman told the Sunday World this week.

“I made my statement [to gardaí] two years ago and I was brought in as a witness in the case involving the two other women.”

Asked what had occurred in her case, she said: “I got kicked out of a nightclub. That’s when Raymond approached me in a taxi.

“My friends had my money and I wasn’t allowed back into the club to get it.

“I told him I didn’t have money for the taxi but he said it was OK — that he wouldn’t let a young girl go home on her own in that state.

“It was in 2021, I was 20 at the time. I was very, very drunk,” the woman recalls.

“I was literally falling as I walking down the road and I couldn’t get through to my family to call me a taxi. I was literally locked.”

The woman said after Shorten began driving, he asked her if she was staying out.

“I said ‘yeah’, on the spur of the moment,” she recalled. “Then we drove somewhere — a little dark place.

“I didn’t really know where we were going. And he got into the back of the taxi.

“I think he asked me if I wanted to have sex and I said ‘yeah’. But I wouldn’t have done it sober.

“I was very uncomfortable after that. And he was texting me.

“I got a lift from him once more after that and he again asked me if I was staying out.

“He wouldn’t let me pay him or anything so I was thinking he wanted other stuff off me again.

“But I said no. Then I brushed the whole thing off my shoulder and ignored him from then on.”

The woman said the next time she heard Raymond Shorten’s name was when gardaí contacted her.

“I wouldn’t have done it sober at all. I don’t find him attractive — he’s double my age.

“And when I was questioned by the gardaí, it took a very big toll on me — I had to leave work for three months and go to counselling.

“And I couldn’t even go to counselling because my counsellor was male and I felt really uncomfortable around him.”

The woman said this month’s trial had brought with it a fresh shock when she learned that it was two women and not one that Shorten had raped.

She said she was called as a witness during the trial to confirm the statement she gave to gardaí two years ago.

“I was in a horrible head space in the court,” she said.

“I just couldn’t stop crying. I did feel some relief today after he was found.

“But I do think I’ll have to go back to counselling now because I’ve never talked about this. I never told my family or anything.

“I thought it was just the one girl he’d done this to because I tried not to read about it online.

“But when I saw two other girls in the court I had to go outside and I was roaring crying talking to the garda outside.

“I couldn’t believe it … and I then I found out during the trial there were two other girls like me who he’d had sex with in the taxi as well.

“It’s just very sickening and I do think there are probably other girls out there as well who have stayed silent about it.

“I glad now I did come forward and speak with the gardaí if it helped those other girls who were involved. He is 100pc a predator and I hope he rots in his cell.

“It’s a relief that he was found guilty because he was denying it, was saying everyone was consensual.

“It’s disgusting what he did. He was looking for a drunk girl that night … that’s how I feel now.”.

Mr Justice Paul McDermott has remanded Shorten in custody to be sentenced on July 1 and ordered the preparation of victim impact statements.