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Darius Savickis: Galway rape, flight to Scotland and a second return to Ireland

The Lithuanian national grabbed a 23-year-old woman walking home from work and forced her to perform oral sex. DNA matched him through an English police database; he later failed to appear for trial, absconded to Scotland and had to be returned under a European Arrest Warrant.

Published 26 July 2026 · Remigration Ireland case ledger
6 yearsRape sentence
8 priorsRoad-traffic and theft
2 warrantsSeparate EAW episodes
~€502,000Intended-span illustration

The public record follows Darius Savickis across borders and back again: DNA identification through England, flight to Scotland before his Irish trial, forced return under a European Arrest Warrant, a six-year rape sentence, surrender to Lithuania under a second warrant and then a lawful return to Ireland.

Attacked while walking home from work

On 28 November 2005, the 23-year-old woman was walking home from work in Galway when Savickis grabbed her from behind and knocked her to the ground.

He restrained her so that she could not turn and see his face. He opened her trousers, forced her to touch his penis and forced her to perform oral sex. Oral rape is rape; the term describes the act and does not lessen the offence.

Afterwards, the woman reached her home and met her flatmate. She had difficulty explaining what had happened, so she used a dictionary and pointed to the word “rape”. She was later diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

DNA crossed a border before the suspect did

Gardaí recovered DNA from semen on the hood of the woman's jacket. Local suspects were eliminated. When the profile was circulated to English police, it matched a profile held on their database and identified Savickis.

Savickis was re-arrested in January 2007 and denied the offence. When charged in May 2007, he reportedly replied that the woman had never seen him and that he wanted to see her. At sentencing, the court heard that he accepted the DNA evidence but claimed to have no recollection of the crime.

He had eight previous convictions for road-traffic and theft offences. Those convictions were not reported as violent or sexual offences and are not described as such here.

Failed to appear, fled to Scotland, returned by warrant

A bench warrant was issued in July 2008 after Savickis failed to appear for trial. Gardaí discovered that he had absconded to Scotland.

He was brought back to Ireland under a European Arrest Warrant and remanded in custody. He later changed his plea to guilty. On 27 July 2009, Mr Justice Paul Carney sentenced him at the Central Criminal Court to six years for oral rape.

The judge took the guilty plea into account. Defence counsel said Savickis regretted the trauma caused and did not seek to use his heavy alcohol consumption as an excuse.

A second European Arrest Warrant

A later High Court judgment recorded Savickis's initial intended release date as 19 August 2014. He was not released then. Instead, he remained detained under a separate European Arrest Warrant issued by the Lithuanian authorities.

The High Court ordered his surrender to Lithuania on 31 July 2014. After a brief period in custody there, he was released and lawfully returned to Ireland around November 2015 to live with his partner and child.

The first warrant returned Savickis from Scotland so the Irish rape case could proceed. The second surrendered him from Ireland to Lithuania after the Irish sentence. The located Irish judgment does not state the underlying Lithuanian allegation or a foreign conviction, so this page does not invent either.

The later notification proceeding

The 2019 High Court judgment arose from a later District Court prosecution alleging that Savickis had failed to notify Gardaí of his name and address as required under the Sex Offenders Act.

According to the judgment, a housing application submitted to Galway County Council on 18 January 2017 prompted Garda vetting. The following day, a detective found no registration on the Garda system, met Savickis at his home and arrested him. A dispute then arose about the quality of interpretation during his Garda interview and the fairness of the trial process.

The High Court decided procedural questions about how the District Court should assess interpretation and trial fairness. The located judgment does not record a final conviction on the notification charge. It remains an allegation on this page, not an adjudicated offence.

Case chronology

What the documented custody span illustrates

The Irish Prison Service's 2024 system average was €99,072 per available staffed prison space, excluding capital expenditure. The High Court judgment records the period from the 27 July 2009 sentence to an initial intended release on 19 August 2014: 1,849 days, or about 5.06 years. Applying the later annual benchmark retrospectively gives an illustration of approximately €501,541, rounded to about €502,000.

The face value of a full six-year term at the same static rate would be €594,432. That larger number is conditional rather than a claim about time served. Savickis remained detained for surrender to Lithuania rather than being released on the recorded date, but this page does not add that period because the sources do not provide dates and classification sufficient for a reliable calculation.

Neither figure is a prisoner-specific invoice or marginal cost. The IPS measure is a later system-wide average applied here for scale; actual historic annual costs differed. Remand credit, remission, prison transfers and European Arrest Warrant detention further complicate the calculation. The benchmark excludes capital spending and does not include Garda investigation, DNA analysis, prosecution, courts, legal aid, cross-border transport and litigation, registration enforcement or the harm suffered by the victim.

A civil award does not erase either side's rights

While serving the rape sentence, Savickis was unlawfully assaulted by a prison officer. In 2016, the Court of Appeal awarded him €17,225 in damages. His conviction did not remove his right to protection from unlawful force in custody.

The rape victim then sought a freezing order over that award pending her own damages action. Her counsel alleged that Savickis intended to dissipate the money by withholding an address. The located report described an interim application, not a final finding, so this page does not present the allegation as proved.

What the record establishes

Irish court reporting expressly identifies Savickis as a Lithuanian national. It documents his Irish rape conviction, flight to Scotland, two distinct warrant processes and lawful return from Lithuania.

It does not identify him as an asylum seeker or report a deportation order. His later return was expressly lawful. His current whereabouts and the final outcome of the notification prosecution were not established in the sources reviewed for this page.

Sources