Jail for sex with underage girls
Victim attempted to end her life
A 31-YEAR-OLD man has been convicted and sentenced to six years in prison for the sexual exploitation and defilement of two teenage girls in the county. The convicted man cannot be named to protect the identity of his victims who were aged just 15 and 16 years at the time he had unlawful sexual relations with them.
Cavan Circuit Court heard evidence of the man’s emotionally abusive and manipulative behaviour towards the vulnerable teens as well as his use of violence and threats against them.
For a time, while he was conducting an illegal relationship with the 16-year-old girl, the man, who was 28 years at the time, started a second “relationship” with a 15-year-old child. His crimes only came to light after one of the girls attempted to take her own life and the medical staff attending to her alerted the relevant authorities.
The man, who is a foreign national, was originally sent forward for trial on two indictments.
On January 12, 2024, Cavan District Court sent the man forward for trial on 16 sexual offences on the first indictment. They included one count of sexual exploitation and four counts of engaging in sexual intercourse with the 15-year-old girl.
He was also charged with 10 counts of having sexual intercourse with the 16-year-old and one count of assaulting the same girl.
The defendant was granted bail on a number of conditions including that he refrained from being in the presence of unaccompanied minors, surrendered his passport, and had no contact whatsoever with his victims.
A second indictment dealt with a separate altercation involving the man and the 15-year-old during which she was cut on the hand with a knife, and on March 4 he pleaded guilty to one charge of assault causing harm. His bail was revoked and he was sent into custody to await trial for the sexual offences.
The man was brought to the recent Cavan Circuit Court sittings from Midlands Prison and arraigned on six sample charges, to which he pleaded guilty.
In the case of the older girl, who was 16 at the time, he was arraigned on three counts of having sexual intercourse with a girl under the age of 17 on dates unknown between August 2021 and April 2022.
In the case of the younger girl, he was arraigned on one count of sexual exploitation of a child on dates unknown between April 23 and October 10, 2022, and two counts of having sexual intercourse, with the same girl on dates unknown in May and June 2022.
Evidence
Prosecuting barrister for the state, Monica Lawlor BL, gave the details of the case at the arraignment hearing.
Ms Lawlor told how an ambulance was called to the man’s address in 2022 after the 16-year-old girl attempted to take her own life. Gardaí took a statement from her through a “specialist interview”, which takes the format of allowing the child to speak and the interviewer taking the child back over points raised for clarification.
The girl explained the first time she met the man was at a house party in the summer of 2021. Reading from the girl’s garda statement, Monica Lawlor said she was supposed to be staying at another house with a friend. When she and her friend had a falling out, she had nowhere to sleep, and the man suggested she come with him to his house where there was another house party going on.
At the other house the man said he had a double bed the girl could sleep in. “At the party he pushed me up against a wall and started kissing me and I was like ‘What are you doing?’,” the girl’s statement read.
When the pair went to sleep in his double bed the man said: ‘You know the way I said I wouldn’t touch you, well it’s very difficult’ “and we had sex that night,” her statement continued. “The next morning I told him what age I was.”
About a week after, the man asked her out and, according to the girl’s statement, she said her mother had no problem with the age difference ‘as long as he treated her daughter right’ and paid for birth control. The girl’s mother also got the man a job locally.
“The accused then suggested they could be ‘friends with benefits’ and she said ‘no’, Ms Lawlor said. “Then he said he could pay her to have sex with him.”
The barrister said he was constantly asking her for anal sex. This happened on one occasion, but the girl was not comfortable with it, the court heard.
On one occasion at 3am, the judge was told, he asked the girl for anal sex and, when she refused, he told her to go home.
“I was gathering my stuff up and was just looking out the window when he came at me,” Ms Lawlor read from the girl’s statement.
“He came at me out of nowhere and tried to kick me in the face. Then, he put me to the wall and started choking me with both his hands. He left a mark on my neck because his nails were long,” the statement continued.
The defendant denied having anal sex with the girl and his barrister pointed out to the court that he was not charged with it.
Ms Lawlor said the first incidence of sexual intercourse is recorded as July or August 2021 and continued until the girl went on holidays in June 2022. She described how she suspected he may be cheating on her and, when she went to check his phone one day before her holiday, he grabbed her hand dug his fingernails into it until she let the mobile drop because “it was sore”.
Her statement described how she had sex with him “so he wouldn’t get angry” and described it as “rough” and “sore”.
On another occasion, the girl described how she was dancing in a group during a party at the man’s home and he was staring at her “in a weird way and wouldn’t talk to me”.
Later that night he said the teenager had hurt him so much and he should be allowed to have another girl.
“He said he had a better pig and beat me with a sweeping brush,” the girl’s statement read. She also detailed how she found text messages between the man and another young girl before she left for holidays.
When she returned from her trip, she stayed in his house and one night when he tried to have sex with her, she refused. “I usually do allow him because he gets mad, but I said ‘no’ and slapped him and then he choked me and pushed me onto the bed.”
She said he made her feel worthless, and she wanted to kill herself and he urged her to do it.
“I just opened a bottle of bleach and drank it,” the girl told gardaí. “It burned straight away, my mouth was all swollen and burned. He didn’t try to help me.”
Her statement describes how the man phoned for an ambulance but then cancelled it.
The girl then had to call an ambulance for herself.
“I was on my knees as I was trying to get sick and he pushed me, then he pushed me again and he pushed me again and hit me three times with a closed fist,” her statement said.
“The garda investigation started after the ambulance was called,” Monica Lawlor told the court. She explained how the investigation soon included a second victim.
Second girl
That girl was just 15 when the man first had sex with her in May 2022. He was 28. She described how she went to his house nearly every day to smoke weed and on one occasion he started feeling her stomach, then her thigh followed by biting her ear and then touching her vagina. “That’s how it started,” the girl said in her statement.
On another visit to his house to smoke cannabis, the man touched the girl in a similar way and took off her leggings. “I was shaking and just froze,” her statement said.
“But I didn’t learn from that mistake and went back after a few days”, she told gardaí. “His girlfriend went on holidays, and he would invite me up and we just basically had sex like all the time. I was up there nearly every day in the summer of 2022,” she told gardaí.
She told of a time when she was having a shower at the accused’s house, and he said he wanted to have a shower with her, but she refused.
“He got me in a kinda headlock and was grabbing my ass and I thought ‘what is wrong with this lad?’” her statement read.
Another time when she was “messing” with him, he pushed her to the bed and held her down by holding her wrists and tried to singe her hair with a lighter.
Admissions
Gardaí arrested the man in relation to the first girl in October 2022. When officers became aware of the second girl, he was arrested again in July 2023. Gardaí conducted five interviews with him in all.
Giving evidence, Garda Niall Sweeney said the defendant made admissions during interview. He admitted the relationship with the first schoolgirl was sexual and also admitted knowing she was aged just 16.
When asked about the marks on that girl the night she was taken to hospital he said after she drank the bleach he grabbed her by the neck to wash out her mouth.
“He said he was texting the other girl to make his girlfriend jealous,” Gda Sweeney said, “and I put it to him ‘so, you’re texting a 15-year-old to make your 16-year-old girlfriend jealous?’ and he answered: ‘Yes’”.
When asked what he knew of the defendant’s personal circumstances, Gda Sweeney said he came to Ireland from abroad looking for work in 2019. He has a young daughter living abroad.
In her victim impact statement, the first young girl said she is psychologically damaged after her time with the accused.
“He used to use hurtful words and physical violence that was very hurtful to me,” her statement read. She had third degree burns on her tongue and still wakes up screaming at night.
She said the “physical, emotional and sexual abuse destroyed her teenage years”.
She lost 15 kilos in weight in the two months after her suicide attempt and her mother still hides all chemicals and knives from her at her home. The girl also described how a doctor had to cut the side of her tongue to enable her to stick it out as normal.
The second schoolgirl said she was “a young teenager struggling to make sense of things” when she met the accused.
The psychological damage he caused her “affects everyday life from school to friendships and relationships” and she carries the weight of mistrust and second-guesses everyone.
In defending the accused, Paul Greene BL, said his client did “not wish to minimise anything, which is indicated by his set of pleas”.
“While offending is serious and the age gap significant, there seems to have been a relationship in both cases,” Mr Greene said. “He is of the belief that the relationships were not a negative experience,” the barrister added, and he pointed to the fact the man’s guilty pleas save the victims having to give evidence in a trial.
A probation report on the accused said he was at “moderate risk of re-offending”.
Sentencing
“There was a very significant age difference, and the offending was of a very pre-meditated nature and involved the exploitation of the youth and innocence of two young victims,” Judge John Aylmer told the man who is now aged 31.
In relation to his younger victim, the judge told the man: “The fact the girl was only 15 at the time while you were a mature 28-year-old means you were a predator of an underage girl.
“It’s clear from their victim impact statements your offending has had a very negative effect on them, and further offending involved significant force and violence.”
He remarked on the violence and exploitation involved in both cases.
“Your degradation and humiliation of your young victims culminated in one girl self-harming with drain cleaner. The offending against the other victim involved her being under the influence of cannabis,” Judge Aylmer continued.
The judge said the defilement and sexual exploitation offences against the 15-year-old call for a maximum sentence of seven years in jail. Since he considered the man’s offending to be on the upper end of the scale, Judge Aylmer imposed a six-year sentence before mitigation.
The sample charges of having sexual intercourse with the 16-year-old was on the mid-range of offending, the judge said, and those merited four years in jail.
The fact the assault charge involved a knife would merit a prison sentence of three and half years but, Judge Aylmer said that sentence should run consecutive to the matters on the sexual charges indictment.
Judge Aylmer acknowledged the man’s very early plea of guilty and how he provided some co-operation to the investigation of the older of the victims. Sentencing the defendant, Judge Aylmer said: “As a [foreign national] you will find prison in Ireland difficult. You have shown little empathy or remorse, but your early plea has spared your victims a trial.”
The judge said he could reduce the jail term for the offences against the younger victim to four years and, for having sex with the 16-year-old, he sentenced the man to two years eight months in prison to run concurrently.
For the charge of assault involving a knife in which the 15-tear-old received a minor cut to her hand, Judge Aylmer sentenced the man to two years in prison to run consecutively.
In all, the man will have to spend six years in Castlerea Prison back-dated to March 4 when he first was taken in to custody.