Kildare man who sexually assaulted then girlfriend is jailed for three years

The 22-year-old man pleaded guilty to six counts of sexual assault

By Eimear Dodd

A teenager who subjected his then-girlfriend to a series of violent sexual assaults has been jailed for three years.

The 22-year-old man pleaded guilty to six counts of sexual assault on a trial date. He can't be identified for legal reasons. 

A local garda told the court that the boy and girl, who were then both 16, were in a relationship. He violently sexually assaulted her six times on four occasions at his family home in Co. Kildare between July and October 2019.

In a powerful victim impact statement read at an earlier hearing, the woman outlined the emotional and psychological effects of the abuse on her.

She said she trusted the man, but he “betrayed this trust”.

It was her first relationship, and she “naively didn’t know any different”. She said she became afraid of him after the first incident and described suffering from nightmares and panic attacks.

She said she has wondered if she made the right choice to report the abuse and feels guilty for the impact on the man and his family.

She said there are “times when I don’t see myself as anything but an object because of what you did to me”.

She said the man was worried about his reputation that he had “gaslit” her and minimised her experiences “all to excuse your selfish sexual desires”.

She said she wouldn't let him “silence me ever again,” adding that she had waited through “five years of being silenced.”

The woman was highly critical in her victim impact evidence of the circumstances surrounding the acceptance by the Director of Public Prosecutions of the man's pleas, adding that she had prepared herself for the criminal process. 

She said she “didn't want to take the deal”, adding later that she felt her privacy was “taken advantage of again”.

Imposing sentence today, Mr Justice Paul Burns noted the victim is “critical of the decision to accept the pleas” but expressed the court's hope that “the opportunity to speak out and be heard in the course of presenting the victim impact statement has gone some way to giving her a voice in these proceedings”.

Mr Justice Burns said the offending in this case was in the “upper range” and was “accompanied by controlling and manipulating behaviour” by the defendant. He noted the “profound negative impact” on the victim, the use of violence, and that it occurred on several occasions.

The judge said he would set a headline sentence of ten years if the accused were an adult, which he reduced to five years as the defendant was a juvenile at the time.

Mr Justice Burns said the boy “knew what he was doing was wrong” and “attempted to manipulate” the complainant so she wouldn't tell anyone.

Having considered the mitigation, the judge imposed a sentence of four years, with the final 12 months suspended on strict conditions for three years.

Addressing the victim, Mr Justice Burns said the main reason for setting the penalty at this level was because the accused was “in law a child at the time”.

He told her she had nothing to feel ashamed or guilty about and that the defendant was the only person at fault.

He said she should be proud of herself for finding her voice and disclosing what occurred.

Mr Justice Burns commented that there appears to be an increasing number of cases of young men before the courts charged with sexual offences, where access to online pornography is a factor. The judge said he “wonders” if more could be done to educate young men about the importance of consent, the impacts on victims and the consequences for the perpetrators.

An investigating garda told the court that all incidents of sexual assault occurred in the boy's house. In the final incident, he grabbed her by her wrists before sexually assaulting her.

The court heard the boy walked her home after this incident. She told him she didn't want to see him again, and he asked her not to tell anyone as it would ruin his life.

She later complained to the gardai. In 2021, the boy was interviewed voluntarily by the gardai but made no comment.

In her victim impact statement, she said the abuse “developed into emotional abuse” as he threatened suicide when she told him she didn’t want to.

She said she didn't know at 16 how to deal with the situation. She reached out to a friend for support and said she was told it “wasn’t worth ruining” his life.

The woman said she started to self-harm and developed suicidal ideation. She said she missed school to avoid him.

She described the last incident as the “most horrific and violent”, saying, “I felt he wanted to hurt me”. “I couldn’t fight him. I knew he would hurt me if I did”.

The woman said she told him on the walk home that he would never touch her again and said he threatened to take his own life.

The local garda agreed with Maurice Coffey SC, defending, that the plea was of assistance to the prosecution.

It was further accepted that there was a delay interviewing the boy due to the Covid-19 pandemic and due to the time taken to obtain records from a social media provider.

Mr Coffey said the victim impact statement was “most eloquent” and “viscerally” described the impact on the victim.

He asked the court to take into account his client's young age at the time, his guilty plea and other mitigating features of the case.

Mr Coffey noted there appear to be “more cases of children perpetuating sexual offences against children”, and a “common thread in a lot of these cases is that perpetrators have a certain lack of maturity and have access and exposure to pornographic material”.

Counsel said what happened to the victim was a “gross crime” but asked the court to consider the perspective of a 16-year-old boy, who had a “degree of immaturity” and a “blurred” understanding of consent.

In her victim impact statement, the woman said she had developed an “intense fear of hugs and close connection.

She said that after she told her parents and made a complaint to gardai, she was afraid to see him at school. She said when she asked to move classes, this was refused. She said she couldn't move schools and decided to continue as she wanted to go to college.

She described his behaviour as “intimidation tactics” and said he would be waiting for her at the school gates and would sit near her in classrooms. She described getting panic attacks and said it was “hard to focus” on her classwork.

She described the Covid pandemic as a relief but said the intimidation continued when school resumed. She said she felt like a “prisoner in my own mind and home”.

Around this time, she said rumours started going around in school, and she was made “a liar until proven truthful”.

The woman said she couldn't work in her local area because she was afraid he might appear at her workplace.

She said she had to move away to regain “any resemblance” of a normal life.

She said her mental health was also badly affected, and she required a period of hospitalisation. She said she “can’t have a normal relationship because of a fear of intimacy and hesitancy to trust”.

The woman told Mr Justice Burns she had received a letter of apology from the man. She told the judge, “As much as I wish I could forgive him, I can’t. I don’t think I will ever forgive this person for what he put me through. I hope he can forgive himself.”

A letter of apology, psychological report, probation report and a number of testimonials were handed to the court.

Mr Coffey said he is instructed while the woman may have felt there was intimidation at school, “it's refuted it was intentional”.  “Clearly both were present in the same school”, counsel noted, and “no doubt it was intimidating and awful for her”.

The man's parents were in court to support him. Mr Coffey noted the man is in a relationship and suggested he has matured over the intervening period.

His client has completed some further education courses and has some work history.