‘Rapist taxi driver targeted me for sex – he was looking for a drunk girl’

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, last night 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.”

The woman tells her story today as 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.

Investigating officers said messages Shorten had sent to her number had been retrieved from his phone.

“When the gardaí questioned me, they explained to me that under the law sex can’t be consensual if someone is in a vulnerable state,” she continued.

“I was 20 at the time, I don’t know exactly how much I had to drink.

“But I’d had a lot to drink and that’s why I was kicked out of the nightclub — because I was too drunk,” the young woman said.

“But I think now he was driving around that night looking for a drunk girl to pick up.

“At the time, I didn’t think anything of it. But now that all this has happened, I do believe that that was what his intentions were.”

“I wouldn’t have touched him if I was sober. He’s 50 and I’m still only 23 now. You know what I mean.”

Asked to describe Shorten, the woman said: “He seemed very normal, very chatty.

“He stopped texting for a while but then he started again asking if I was out. I never replied.

“I think, I’m not hundred per cent sure, but I think it was a month or two after that that gardaí contacted me to ask how I knew him.”

The woman said she was totally shocked after learning Shorten was under investigation for raping young women in the back of his taxi.

“When all this first happened, I brushed it over my shoulder and pretended that none of it had ever happened,” she said.

“Because I did feel very ashamed and very down in myself for even agreeing to that with the state I was in.

“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.”

On Friday, Shorten was found guilty of two counts of rape and one of anal rape by a jury at the Central Criminal Court.

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.

The prosecution’s case was that each young woman found themselves in a taxi after a night out socialising in Dublin city centre where each was raped by Shorten.

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