A WEXFORD teenager who committed an aggravated sexual assault on a young woman as she lay comatose from poitin in a Courtown car-park has had his sentence adjourned under strict conditions to June 1998.
If the youth failed to meet any of the conditions he would be jailed for not less than five years, Mr Justice Flood warned.
The 16-year-old must attend weekly at his local Garda station and report monthly to a probation officer, Mr Billy Kavanagh, and obey his directions. Mr Kavanagh will report to the court monthly.
The youth was also required to live with his mother. A family friend who agreed to enter into a surety of £1,000 will monitor the youth and inform gardai if he is unhappy with his conduct.
The judge said he hoped the teenager's employer would keep him and that he would seek to further his own education through an EEC or FAS course which would provide him with a skill or advance his potential career.
Mr Justice Flood was not committing himself to his final decision on the adjourned date.
"I would hope that in the period between now and then the accused will have demonstrated to me and to all concerned that he is a person who can be trusted to fully rehabilitate himself in society. The future is entirely in his hands," he said.
The teenager pleaded guilty on October 23rd to aggravated sexual assault of the victim (18) on June 12th, 1994. He had been remanded in custody on November 21st. His case has been listed for June 25th, 1998.
Mr Justice Flood said Mr Patrick MacEntee SC (with Mr Shane Murphy), defending, had made a strong plea that the case came within the rare exception which warranted a non-custodial sentence.
The judge quoted from a judgment by Mr Justice Finlay in 1988 - and a decision he gave in another case in 1995 and said the reality of a conviction for a sexual offence was that the defendant was branded for life.
The defendant, save in exceptional circumstances, would serve (a custodial sentence during which he would be segregated from non-sexual offenders and would not (get temporary release.
"It is a fact of prison life that the area in which he will be confined is a hotbed of lurid sexual fantasies and human corruption. The probability is that at the end of his term of imprisonment he will emerge more depraved than at the outset and quite probably addicted to drugs."
He said the court had ruled in the case of The Stale v Mahon that "the punishment should be appropriate not only to the offence committed, but also to the particular offender
Mr MacEntee's submission, he said, hinged on the youth being a little over 14 at the time of the offence and, serious though the offence was, to expose him to a corrupt and depraved scene for several years would not be consistent with the principles of sentencing.
The judge said in this case it had been established that the teenager had been under 15 at the time of the offence and had no previous sexual experience, and the offence was an aberration.
He had made a full and frank admission of guilt and, according to his probation report, had seriously contemplated suicide due to remorse.
In the two years since the offence he had behaved impeccably and obtained employment, and a local sergeant had said the offence was totally out of character, said Mr Justice Flood.
At an earlier hearing, the court was told that, 12 hours after she was attacked, the victim was found still unconscious and partly naked in the car-park. She was rushed to intensive care in Wexford General Hospital.
Later it was claimed that three men had had sex with her, one of them twice, while she was unconscious from drink, Det Garda Thomas Byrne told Mr Joseph Mathews SC (with Mr John Peart SC), prosecuting.
Det Garda Byrne said it was believed the woman was plied with wine and then given poitin by her attackers. She was found to have 3 1/2 times the legal driving limit of alcohol in her blood.
The garda said the youth apologised to the victim in his statement, saying he knew she had not consented to intercourse.