Court hears man was 12 or 13 when he sexually assaulted girl (4) in Offaly

A MAN who was a child when he repeatedly sexually assaulted a four-year-old girl has told a court that he did not understand the serious nature of his actions or their potential lasting consequences at the time.

The now 55-year-old man was jailed on Friday (March 27) for six months after the sentencing judge took into account his “extremely young age” at the time of offending, which occurred when he was aged between 12 and 13 years’ old.

The man pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to three sample counts of sexual assault on dates between September 1983 and October 1984 at a house in Offaly.

The counts were entered on a full facts basis and 11 other charges of sexual assault were taken into consideration for sentencing.

In his plea of mitigation, the man's defence counsel, John Shortt, SC, told the court that his client grew up in a family home dominated by Catholicism and that he was unaware of his own sexual orientation.

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He said while it was a loving home, his elderly parents had an “almost puritanical approach to the dominance of the Catholic Church”. The defendant was aged between 12 and 13 when he repeatedly sexually assaulted the four-year-old girl.

He was a neighbour of the victim and cannot be named to protect her anonymity, the court was told.

Justice Patrick McGrath said this was a particularly difficult case for him when it came to sentencing. He said he had to take into account the defendant's extremely young age at the time, adding he did not think he had ever sentenced someone who was that young at the time.

He said as a result of this, he would reduce the headline sentence by 60% to account for the man's low culpability due to his youth.

The judge set a headline sentence of five years, taking into account the aggravating factors in the case, including the repeated nature of the offending over a 13-month period, the significant harm done to the complainant and the age disparity between them.

He reduced this to two years to reflect the defendant's youth and then took further mitigating factors into account, including the man's early guilty plea, his genuine remorse, his age and medical conditions, his long work history and the fact he is considered unlikely to re-offend.

The judge set a sentence of 15 months and suspended the final nine months, on a number of conditions. He ordered that a sum of money the man had in court for the victim should be given to the charity of her choice, as she had requested.

A garda previously gave evidence that the defendant's family were neighbours of the victim's family and that the victim would come in and out of his family home almost every day.

The defendant was home alone on the occasion of the first offence and brought the girl up to his bedroom where he instructed her to strip and get into his bed.

The defendant then sexually assaulted her by digital penetration. The victim later told gardai that this was very painful and she was trying not to cry.

After the assault the defendant told her she had been a very good girl and to “come back tomorrow, mammy will be here then”. The girl had started school and wanted to show the defendant's mother her uniform.

The court heard that over the next year the defendant repeatedly carried out this type of assault, with the complainant telling gardai that it happened frequently and perhaps even every day. The defendant would sexually assault the girl as she sat on his lap while using a desktop computer in his house.

On one occasion he brought her into a bathroom and told her: “We are going to play a game-you are going to turn me inside out.” He then got her to masturbate him.

The defendant told the child that what he was doing was a secret and that she was not to tell anyone. He told her that if she did, her mother and father would send her away, the garda told prosecuting counsel, Lorcan Staines, SC.

The court heard the victim was very confused about what was happening and that the defendant “made her feel as though she was special”. When the defendant stopped meeting her, she said: “she didn't know what was going on” and “she felt like crap, that she just wasn't needed anymore”.

In her victim impact statement, the woman told the court that the sexual assaults left her “broken into many many pieces that nobody could put back together”. She said that growing up she struggled to control her thoughts so that she didn't think about the abuse.

“I began to starve myself - it gave me a sense of control,” she said. She said she later began self harming to try to numb the pain.

“You were in my mind - each time I reach for a razor blade to cut myself, each time I deprived myself of food, each time I tried to throw up... I hated myself, the dirty, bad, disgusting person that was unlovable,” she told the court.

She said she still struggles with PTSD, nightmares and flashbacks.

“I will never know what my life would have been if my childhood was untouched by such a horrific and traumatic experience,” she said.

Taking to the witness box, the defendant told the court that he wanted to express his “genuine and absolute sadness and regret for the events that I have been held accountable for”.

“I regret that these events ever happened. I did not understand the serious nature or the potential lasting consequences of my actions,” he said, adding that he only realised later on in life how “utterly wrong” his actions were.

“I am profoundly sorry for my actions and I really wish they had never occurred. I would like to hope your future will be a peaceful happy and healthy one,” he said.

He told the court that there was a “very strong religious ethos” in his family home growing up in the 1980s.

He said that he knew then he was gay but he “didn't know what gay meant” and it wasn't a matter he was able to deal with until after his teenage years.

The court heard he is now married having met his husband in 2009. A representative for the company where the man works was present in court and testified that the defendant was a loyal, hardworking man who played an integral role in the business.

The court heard he has no other convictions, and Mr Shortt said his client has lived an otherwise “blameless” life.