A 16-year-old youth appeared in court today denying he twice raped a 15-year-old girl from the north of England who was holidaying in Belfast.
The teenager, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was accused of raping, robbing and assaulting the girl when he appeared at Lisburn Magistrates' Court in Co Antrim.
The teenager, from West Belfast, stood silent in the dock during the brief hearing where a total of 12 charges were put to him. He was accused of twice raping the girl on August 6th and a further charge of indecently assaulting her on the same day.
He was further charged with four identical counts of robbing her of a mobile phone, jewellery and money to the value of £120 armed with an iron bar, four counts of assaulting a female and unlawfully imprisoning her against her will, and one of grievous bodily harm against a male.
Magistrate Alan White remanded him in custody to reappear before the same court via video link on August 30th. A detective sergeant told the court that when he charged the youth last night, he replied not guilty to all charges.
He said he believed he could connect him with all the offences. In answer to a solicitor representing the teenager, he agreed the accused had arranged to go to police with his parents in Newry, Co Down, by prior arrangement yesterday.
The solicitor said his client would be "strenuously denying any wrongdoing" and had done so continuously while in police custody. When the youth was driven away from the court in the back of a police car, he made a single-fingered gesture to waiting photographers.
On Saturday, another 16-year-old was remanded in custody charged with aiding and abetting in the rapes, robbing and assaulting a female and assaulting a male. He too was remanded until August 30th.
The teenage girl was attacked and twice raped and robbed in West Belfast the weekend before last. Three teenage boys she was with were beaten with an iron bar, stripped to the waist and forced to watch while she was raped.
Horrified police revealed the girl's stolen mobile phone was used by one of her attackers to call her mother and gloat over what had happened. In court today, the solicitor said his client did not make any telephone call or send text messages to the mother and the detective sergeant agreed they had not been received until two hours after the attack.
The girl, and the boys she was with, were attacked in the Black's Road area after slipping out unnoticed by parents from the house where she was staying to go to an all-night shop. The girl was dragged into an empty petrol station forecourt and raped.
The boys were hit with an iron bar. All four were then taken to a nearby golfing complex where the second rape took place.