‘I am holding you accountable,’ nurse tells doctor who raped her after night out
- Dignity 4Patients
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
By David Raleigh- 06/03/2024- Irish Independent- [Limerick, Ireland]- [Louay Kila]
A nurse who was raped by a doctor in Limerick faced her abuser in court today and told him: “I got justice.”
Louay Kila (31) who worked as a registrar doctor at the University Hospital Limerick (UHL) at the time, was convicted at the Central Criminal Court, Limerick on Thursday, of the rape and sexual assault of the victim on March 2, 2024.
Kila, a native of Morocco, and with an address at Cois Luachra, Dooradoyle, Limerick, contested the rape and sex assault charges at his four-day trial, held earlier this week.
However, a jury found him guilty of both offences by unanimous decision after four hours of deliberations on Thursday. The nurse said she wished to retain her legal right to anonymity but that Kila be identified. The court consented to this.
On Friday, the nurse took the decision to face Kila at his sentencing hearing, and she read her own victim impact statement, in court, on behalf of all women who have been the victims of sex crimes.
“To my rapist, I stood up and I am holding you accountable for your actions and I got justice,” the nurse said.
“I hope to be an inspiration for any woman who has dealt with an incident like this and encourage them to stand up and hold their rapists accountable.
“I wasn't going to let you abuse me further by letting you get away with it. I stand here on behalf of any woman who has been raped or sexually assaulted and was too afraid to report it.”
Looking at Kila, who buried his head in his knees, the nurse said: “We [women] are people, we are not objects, and we deserve to be treated as such – no means no.”
The court heard Kila and the nurse both worked at UHL and encountered one another as part of a larger group while on a night out in Limerick City.
Later, at an apartment, where they and friends went, Kila had tried to force the victim to kiss him by holding her jaw open. She rebuked him and told him to leave her alone.
Afterwards, a photograph of Kila kissing the victim on her cheek while she was asleep on a couch at the apartment, was shared on a Snapchat account, the court heard.
Later on in the night the victim said she was “in shock” when she awoke to find Kila having sex with her.
Kila also digitally penetrated the victim, and continued doing so after she told him to “stop”.
After Kila left the apartment, the nurse told her friends: “I just kept telling him [Kila] to stop.”
Gardaí were alerted and made efforts to try and track Kila down. He was arrested 20 days after the assaults.
Kila sent the victim a message while she was attending a sexual assault treatment unit, a day after the rape, telling her “I didn’t mean to upset you” and that her “wellbeing” was “important” to him.
Kila replied “no comment” to questions about the rape and sexual assault when interviewed by gardaí under caution.
Two months after the rape, Kila provided gardaí with a prepared written statement, claiming he and the victim had engaged in “consensual” kissing and digital penetration on the night.
On Friday, the nurse told the court the rape and assault impacted “my health, my livelihood, my family life, my potential relationships and my sense of self” and she was “diagnosed with PTSD and put on antidepressants just to cope with the trauma”.
“I live in a state of constant anxiety and fear, and I often get flashbacks and nightmares of what happened to me,” she said.
The woman said that before the rape and assault she had been “excited” to be nursing at UHL, but that after the rape she “couldn't return to work” and felt “physically sick” walking back into the hospital, where Kila continued working for a time.
“I was no longer able to work in that hospital or deliver effective patient care as I was constantly looking over my shoulder hoping that Louay Kila wasn't nearby,” the nurse said.
She said the HSE offered her a transfer to a different healthcare setting “and I felt I had no option other than to take this as Louay was still working as a doctor in UHL”.
“I also feared for the patients of UHL. I knew that I had gotten out of the hospital but what about those who were left behind?” she said.
“I feared something similar could happen to someone else and knew that I would be taking on the guilt of not having done enough if it did. I tried and the gardaí tried to consult UHL but to no avail.
“I worried every time we got a different doctor out from UHL [to the healthcare setting] that it would be him, and how could I possibly reassure patients of their care when I couldn't trust the doctor delivering that care?
“My job is to care for patients, and I felt like a failure because I knew this man was delivering care to vulnerable people and I knew what he was capable of doing to people in vulnerable positions.”
The nurse concluded: “I am a strong woman, I will heal from this, and I will be a stronger more resilient version of myself. I will never let that man take that away from me.”
Kila’s barrister, Liam Carroll, said Kila consented to being suspended from the register of doctors in Ireland in March last year, 12 months after he raped the nurse.
“This has had catastrophic consequences for his career,” Mr Carroll said.
“He [Kila] could not work as a doctor afterwards, he has been in a form of purgatory, frozen in time, a non-national with no family here, and prison will be difficult for him.
“He has suffered psychologically, is receiving medication. He has no previous convictions, he has not come to garda attention since.”
Judge Sean Gillane commended the nurse and said he would carefully consider her victim impact statement. He adjourned sentencing and remanded Kila in custody to appear in court again for sentence next Friday.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article and were abused in state run medical and health facilities, you can contact Dignity4Patients, whose helpline is open Monday to Thursday, 10am to 4pm.
Dignity4Patients Commentary: “My job is to care for patients, and I felt like a failure because I knew this man was delivering care to vulnerable people and I knew what he was capable of doing.” Healthcare is built on trust. The trust between a vulnerable patient and the very medical practitioner sworn to care for them. When that trust is threatened, the real failure isn’t the person who raises concerns but rather the system that doesn’t listen.
