Boy (13) convicted of sexually assaulting young woman he followed as she walked home in Cork

A 15-year-old boy has been remanded for sentence after a jury took just two hours to find him guilty of sexually assaulting a young woman who he followed as she walked home in Cork City over a year ago.

The boy, who was just 13 at the time and can’t be identified because he is a juvenile, had pleaded guilty at Cork Circuit Criminal Court of assault causing harm to the young woman but had denied sexually assaulting her at Evergreen Street in Cork on January 29th 2022.

The young woman had told the jury of nine men and three women how she was so badly kicked in the face by the boy that when she tried to ring her parents to tell them what had happened, the facial recognition app on her phone failed to recognise her.

“I tried to ring my parents, but I have facial identification on my phone and the phone wouldn’t open up because I looked so horrendous and when I saw my face on the camera phone later, I just freaked out,” she said.

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The injured party told how she was walking home alone late on the night in question when she thought she heard somebody following her but then felt she was being illogical only to discover somebody right behind her who knocked her to the ground.

“It’s a bit of a blur but I remember bits and pieces – the next thing I remember is being kicked in the face – my face was on the road – I had earrings on, and I could feel them sticking into me ... I kind of shut down but my last thought, I remember thinking – I’m going to die.”

The woman told how when she woke up in hospital the next day, the back of her head really hurt but she couldn’t remember being hit there and then she remembered that her attacker had grabbed her by the hair in a ponytail and tried to drag her, face down along the road.

“I remember being kicked in the face and then it was lights out,” said the woman as she told how she remembered a woman coming to her aid and putting her in her car and telling her to ring her parents while gardaí and paramedics were also called.

She said she went for a sexual assault examination at the South Infirmary Victoria University Hospital while she was also medically examined as it was feared she had suffered a broken jaw. A CAT scan revealed she was suffering from concussion as a result of the assault.

Asked by prosecution barrister, Paula McCarthy BL what she was wearing on the night, the woman confirmed that she was wearing a full-length dress that came right down to her ankles and she identified the dress when it was held up in court in front of the jury.

Cross-examined by defence counsel, Siobhán Lankford SC, the woman said she had no memory of the night other than what she had said in direct evidence, but she agreed with Ms Lankford that the samples taken during the sexual assault examination showed no evidence she had been raped.

Witness Denise O’Sullivan told the court how she was driving up Evergreen Street to go to Douglas Street when she saw a male in the middle of the road whose leg was moving as if he was kicking something. When she drew closer and shone her car lights on him, she saw it was a woman.

“She had a long dress on (but) I could see the girl’s dress was up above her waist – it was up around her breasts, and I could see her panties, her panties were down – you could see her crotch – she was lying on the floor,” said Ms O’Sullivan, who did not know the injured party.

“I asked the fellow what was happening, and he said, ‘It’s okay, I have her’ – I asked her did she know him, and she said ‘No,’ and then she said, ‘Help me’ – she was sobbing uncontrollably, and she said he was following her.

“The gentleman said that ‘Three fellows had kicked the sh**e out of her and that he had just come upon her’, and then he dropped her down on her bum and he said he was going to go after the three fellows who kicked the sh**e out of her, and he ran off.”

Ms O’Sullivan said that she told the girl that she was safe now and her partner, Gerard Byrne, and another man who came on the scene, picked her up and placed the girl in Ms O’Sullivan’s car and she started wiping the blood off her face which was swelling up badly.

Mr Byrne told how he saw “a guy standing over a young girl” on the junction of Evergreen Street and Douglas Street and she had blood on her face while her dress was up over her belly, and she was shaking.

The male, who had been standing over the girl, said: “It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me”. He then ran away and went off down Douglas Street, said Mr Byrne, adding that “there was blood on her face and all her face was marked”.

After the jury returned its verdict, Judge Catherine Staines remanded the boy on bail for sentencing until May 19th to allow for the preparation of a victim impact statement while she also directed that a probation report be prepared on the teenager who had never been in trouble before.