A TRAINEE teacher was remanded on bail for sentencing after admitting engaging in sex acts with a 13-year old girl, five years ago.
The defendant, who cannot presently be named for legal reasons, pled guilty at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court to engaging in a sexual act with a child under the age of fifteen, between the 8-9 May, 2021.
At the time the victim was aged 13 and the defendant was almost 20, the court heard.
Earlier on the day in question, the defendant and the victim, now aged 18, had engaged in conversation in which the defendant told the girl about his sexual habits when he was 13.
The defendant and the girl arranged via the social media app, Snapchat, to meet up for sex later that night.
The girl told gardai that she was “weirded out” when the defendant had asked her, prior to meeting up, what she was prepared to do for him sexually.
The girl told gardai that when she met the defendant on the night he pressuring her to have sex with him but she kept telling him “No”.
The girl said: “He told me, ‘no, you are here now’; he was touching me; I said ‘no’, I changed my mind.”
Despite the victim repeatedly telling defendant “no”, he insisted they have sex.
Afterwards the defendant told the victim she could not tell anyone what happened because, he said, he had a “girlfriend” and he would get into “trouble”.
Prosecuting barrister, John O’Sullivan said: “The accused knew the victim was 13 at the time”.
The girl told gardai that on the night she met the defendant he started touching her chest before having sexual intercourse with her and getting her to perform oral sex on him.
The girl told gardai that when she had first spoken to the defendant “it was fun” but she then felt their conversation “getting weird”.
The girl said she had asked the defendant to meet her later “and he asked me to have sex with him”.
The girl said she told her friends what happened later that night, and she told her mother twelve days later.
After making a disclosure to her mother, the girl attended a Sex Assault Treatment Unit (SATU). The girl told specially trained garda interviewers: “I was pressured into doing something that I didn’t want to do.”
Witness statements taken by gardai from the girl’s friends supported the girl’s criminal complaint.
Gardai also found text messages on the defendant’s mobile phone in which he told his then girlfriend: “I can’t remember a thing… I’m so scared…I can’t remember that night.”
The defendant told gardai the messages were unrelated to what had been alleged against him.
Mr O’Sullivan said that when questioned by gardai, the defendant “agreed it didn’t look good” but he initially denied meeting the girl for sex, or engaging with the girl via Snapchat.
Gardai conducted forensic analysis of clothes worn by the victim on the night, which resulted in the finding of the presence of a DNA profile that matched that of the defendant.
The defendant eventually admitted having sex with the girl but he continues to maintain he cannot remember a lot of what occurred between them on the night.
The defendant’s barrister, senior counsel Mark Nicholas, said the defendant had been attending a college course that would have led to a “teaching post”, but the defendant’s “career had been stymied” by his conviction.
In mitigation, Mr Nicholas said it was accepted that the victim had been “very young” at the time.
“Consent doesn’t arise. It’s extremely regrettable, it was disgraceful and abhorrent,” said Mr Nicholas.
Asking the court to be as lenient as possible when sentencing the defendant, the barrister argued that the man had already “lost his reputation” and had been added to “a sex offenders register”.
Mr Nicholas said a probation report in respect of the defendant found he was at a “low risk” of reoffending and that he had an “impeccable support system at home”
“It should never have happened, and hopefully the victim has been served by his guilty plea.”
Judge Colin Daly said he would pass sentence later this year.