A YOUNG man who forced himself on a 14-year-old girl in a shed will be sentenced later at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
The guilty man was 17 at the time of the offence in 2007. He was charged under the new criminal law dealing with underage sex which provides for the offence of defilement.
The court heard the now 17- year-old victim suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and is afraid to go outside.
She gave evidence that she suffered from nightmares and no longer trusted anybody.
The accused, who has 20 previous convictions, entered a guilty plea immediately before a trial was to start and had never apologised to the victim before the sentence hearing.
He pleaded guilty to the defilement of a minor aged under 17 in a shed in Clare in July 2007. He was 17 at the time.
Judge Desmond Hogan noted that the girl was anxious to have the matter finalised but said he wanted to order a probation report before imposing a sentence. He remanded him on continuing bail until next February.
A garda stationed in Clare told Melanie Baxter, prosecuting, that the girl was talking with a group of friends outside her house when someone asked her if she would “meet” the accused. The garda said this was a slang term for kissing.
She agreed “as long as he doesn’t try any funny stuff”.
The man came over to her and asked her to go with him into a shed behind a house. She said there was no need since they were “only meeting”, but he said everybody would be watching them.
In the shed he asked the girl if he could “break her in”. She said no and resisted as he pulled off her clothes. She became frightened and told him: “I’m not doing anything like this at all.”
He had sex with her for several minutes while she said he was hurting her and told him to get off. He told her he was nearly finished and if she kissed him it would not hurt so much.
When he had finished he asked her to “meet” him again. She refused and when he asked for her phone number, she gave him a fake one. She later told her aunt what had happened and the gardaí were called.
The man was arrested but refused to assist gardaí when interviewed. A trial date was set but he changed his plea to guilty shortly before it began.
Brendan Grehan SC, defending, offered his client’s apologies to the girl. He said his client believed her to be older than she was at the time of the offence.
He submitted the man had gone though several highly traumatic events as a child and was currently on antidepressants. He said that although he had 20 previous convictions, they were all for District Court matters and were mostly alcohol-fuelled offences.
'DEFILEMENT OF A CHILD' - MAXIMUM SENTENCE IS LIFE
THE OFFENCE “defilement of a child” entered the criminal code under the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2006.
This was introduced to replace section 1 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1935, criminalising sex with underage girls, which was struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional because it made no provision for the possibility of mistake as to the age of the girl.
There are two offences under the 2006 Act: defilement of a child (male or female) under 15 and defilement of a child under 17.
These make it a criminal offence to engage or attempt to engage in a sexual act (which is defined in the legislation) with a child. The maximum sentence for defilement of a child under 15 is life imprisonment, and for a child under 17 it is five years, or ten if the accused is a person in authority.
The 2006 Act provides that the accused may argue he (or she) honestly believed the child was aged 15 years or over, or 17 if that is the charge.
The court must then consider whether or not that belief was reasonable. It is not a defence to show that the child consented to the sexual act.