Judge warns over children’s access to pornography as teenager sentenced for attack on woman walking alone

A judge has called for greater restrictions to prevent children accessing pornography as she sentenced a teenage boy, who has been watching porn since he was eleven years old, to 18 months detention for the assault and sexual assault of a young woman walking home alone in Cork.

Judge Catherine Staines said one disturbing element of the case was that the boy, who was aged 13 when he followed the woman through Cork city centre before sexually assaulting her, had been accessing pornography on his phone from the age of 11.

“It is shocking that this is available to vulnerable, impressionable young people. Clearly companies are making vast sums of money from selling pornographic material. More rigorous restrictions should be placed on them to prevent this harmful material being available to young children,” she said.

The defendant, who cannot be named because he is a juvenile, pleaded guilty to assault causing harm to the student on Evergreen Street on January 29th, 2022, but denied sexually assaulting her. A jury took less than two hours to find him guilty of the sex assault charge.

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Det Sgt Katrine Tansley told Cork Circuit Criminal Court the woman was walking home alone from Rearden’s Nightclub on Washington Street at around 11.25pm when the juvenile started following her along South Main Street, over South Gate Bridge and closing in on her on Evergreen St.

The boy knocked her to the ground, kicked her in the face, pulled her dress up and pulled down her underwear and began to drag her across the road by her hair when a motorist came upon them.

The motorist and her husband got out of the car and asked the juvenile what he was doing. He pretended to know the young woman and said he was helping her but when they said they were ringing emergency services, he rang off.

Det Sgt Tansley said Garda Michael Lennon and Garda Ronan O’Sullivan were quickly on the scene and checked CCTV from a nearby pub. They identified the juvenile following the woman and later recognised him walking up Barrack Street and approached him.

The juvenile was not intoxicated but gave them a false name and was evasive in his answers to their questions. He was later detained by appointment and questioned about the assault, and initially denied any involvement in the physical assault and completely denied any sexual assault.

The young woman in her victim impact statement said she didn’t remember much about the attack itself, but she did remember the aftermath including being in hospital and being in complete shock when she didn’t recognise herself, so extensive were the injuries to her face.

“I continue to walk places by myself but still find it hard to relax, even walking during the day, if I hear or think I hear footsteps. I find it hard to breathe and start panicking, it feels like I’m back in the moment I was being assaulted. I usually wait for the person to pass me in order to try to calm down,” she said.

“I find it hard to hug or be close to my male friends or family members. The idea of having a romantic relationship in the near future makes me feel physically uncomfortable. I now feel extremely anxious when passing teenage or young boys – for a minute, my heart starts to race and my chest feels tight.

“Every now and again, I feel extremely angry. I feel angry that this was done to me while I was doing something so basic that everyone has a right to do. I feel angry that my sense of safety has been taken away from me.

“It angers me that it has made me second-guess everyone I walk past and myself for how I react. I’m also angry about the domino effect that this has had on the people around me, how it has affected them and how it has changed how they are around me,” she added.

“There hasn’t been one day that has passed that I haven’t thought about what happened: it has changed me and I’m still dealing with it but I know that I won’t let it control me forever”.

Defence counsel, Siobhán Lankford SC pleaded for leniency, pointing out the accused had no previous convictions and had not come to the adverse attention of An Garda Siochana since the incident.

Judge Staines noted that the juvenile had told a psychologist he had no memory of the incident even though he had apologised through his psychologist for what he had done.

“This is an extremely difficult case because of your young age,” the judge told the defendant before she sentenced him to 18 months detention at Oberstown Children’s Detention Centre on the assault causing harm charge and 12 months concurrent on the sexual assault charge.

Turning to the victim, she said she was deeply sorry for what had happened to her as she was simply “in the wrong place at the wrong time” but she expressed hope the young woman would be able to put the experience behind her and wished her well for the future.