A 26-YEAR-OLD man was convicted yesterday of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old schoolgirl in south Co Donegal.
Leo Forde was convicted by a jury yesterday of three sex assaults on the girl in a school shelter.
Forde, an apartment maintenance manager in Limerick but who lived in Rathnenney, Laghey, Co Donegal, at the time of the offences on three consecutive nights in September 2003, was remanded in custody until July 5th for probation reports.
Judge Gerard Griffin ordered him to be immediately placed on the sex offenders’ register.
Four other men were previously convicted of sex assaults on the same victim.
The young woman, who is now 20 years old, was in court sitting one seat behind Forde, less than three metres to his left, when she heard the verdict that the jury had convicted him by a majority of 11 to one.
She and a social worker sitting alongside clutched each other in tears of comfort.
Forde, on his way out in handcuffs, accused her of lying in court about her age when they had an affair.
He admitted having sex with the girl, but insisted he believed she was 17 years of age at the time.
But the jury at Donegal Circuit Court accepted the evidence of the victim and the main investigating officer, Garda Liam Feeney, who said the girl was always honest about her age.
Judge Griffin told the jury of 10 men and two women there was only one issue for them to resolve – who did they believe on the issue of the girl’s age.
He said both prosecution and defence agreed that the sex happened when the girl lay on a school-shelter bench after the security lights went out.
During the trial, prosecution counsel Eileen O’Leary told the jury there was no suggestion that the defendant forced himself on the girl.
Ms O’Leary also told the jury the girl’s consent to sex could not be a defence when she was under 15 years of age at the time.
Forde, who was already a father of one child at the time of the offences, said he met the girl in a fast-food cafe with two older girls a few weeks after he had moved back to Ireland from England in 2003.
The jury heard that the girl played with her friend’s Barbie dolls during the period she was having sex with older men.
She kept a diary of names and a sheet to check back through the names in case she became pregnant. She had sex 57 times with 22 older men when she was 13.
When the Garda investigation began she spent the next four years in care. Garda Feeney said that after initial problems the girl made good progress in care.
One man from Ballyshannon, 34-year-old former Army private Kenneth McDonald, a father of three, was jailed last June for two years and three months on four counts of sex assaults on the girl in the south Donegal area.
Three other men, aged 30, 27 and 25, last week admitted sex assaults on the girl, and they were remanded on bail for sentence later.
One other man awaits trial in December.