A North Dublin man who raped his friend's 16-year-old daughter and claimed he paid her father £20 to have sex with her has been jailed for five years at the Central Criminal Court.
Mr Justice Carney said he had to take into account a number of factors which made the sentence appear "exceedingly lenient". The judge said he was not taking into account the defendant's claim that he treated the girl's whole family as "sexual playthings to have been enjoyed by him on his whim".
"I am not engaged in the enforcement of morality but am engaged in the enforcement of criminal law," he said.
Mr Justice Carney noted there was an ongoing Garda investigation into the alleged role the girl's father played in this case, but that was a matter that had to be dealt with separately.
The victim-impact report, he said, claimed the girl suffered no damage from the experience.
"Now, if I were to say that I know a few organisations and a couple of tabloid newspapers that would be seeking my removal," Mr Justice Carney remarked.
The man pleaded guilty to raping the girl on June 4th, 1997.
Garda Caroline Hughes told Mr Kenneth Mills SC, prosecuting, the defendant went to the victim's house regularly as her father's friend. He claimed to have slept with a number of the man's daughters.
On the night of the incident he made arrangements with her father to go out to the local off-licence. They bought several cans of beer at the off-licence and drove over to another flat to drink them. The victim was with them.
Garda Hughes said that about 2 a.m. the victim's father wanted the defendant to drive him elsewhere and he refused. The girl's father wanted to go anyway.
Before he left he told the defendant, "She will be alright with you." The defendant told gardai that by this remark his friend was implying it was all right for him to have sex with her.
Garda Hughes said the defendant told them: "I gave him £20 then to have sex with her." He said his friend accepted the money. When her father left he said he walked over to her and told her to come with him to his room. She agreed, he said, because "I think she knew I had made a deal with her father to have sex with her".