He said he thought that she was transgender and therefore was “a predatory pedophile,” repeating language often used by anti-transgender activists.

Alex Bailey, 30, said that he had taken so many drugs that night that he was in a state of “induced psychosis” and believed that the victim, Marie MacGowan, was a “man dressed up as a woman,” according to the Irish Times. She was actually trying to find her way home and was lost when she was attacked around 2 a.m.