Offaly man convicted of sex assault on teen in woods
A 45-year-old Offaly man has been found guilty of kidnapping and sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in remote woodlands nine years ago.
The man had pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to one charge of falsely imprisoning the now 23-year-old woman in a car on November 6, 2000 and counts of aggravated sexual assault and sexual assault against her on the same date.
The charge of aggravated sexual assault was withdrawn from the jury yesterday after the judge directed that the accused be found not guilty on that offence.
The jury reached its majority verdict on day six of the trial following three and half hours of deliberation.
Mr Justice Barry White remanded the man on bail to a date next month when he will be sentenced.
Mr Justice White thanked the jury of four men and eight women for their attention throughout the trial and excused them from service for seven years.
During the trial, the woman told prosecuting counsel, Mr Paul Coffey SC (with Ms Dara Foynes BL), that the accused man pulled her back into his car by her “pony tail” when she tried to get out to follow her boyfriend and another man who had been asked by the accused to fetch something from his house.
The group had just returned at “closing time” from socialising in a number of pubs in the area.
She said the accused drove off with her in the passenger seat and eventually took her to a wooded area where he ordered her to take off her clothes. The woman said that he sexually assaulted twice her in the car despite her crying and telling him that she was only 14 years old.
The woman said the man also tried to kiss and hug her and bit her on the ear. She said that after the second assault she put back on her clothes and the man told her he felt “sick and rotten”.
She said the man drove her back to near her boyfriend’s home and before driving her to his residence he told her that he loved her and kissed her again.
The woman told Mr Coffey she did not consent to the sexual acts she alleges at any point.
She said she was “shaking and crying” when she saw her boyfriend inside his home and told him that she had attacked. She said a sister of a friend of the accused got into his car and he drove off.
The woman said the gardaí were alerted at about midday and she was taken to be medically examined.
Dr. Kevin Connolly, consultant paediatrician, told Mr Coffey that he examined the girl the day following the alleged incident.
He said she gave a history of having been sexually abused at about 1am that morning and said the abuser had bitten her ear and penetrated her vagina.
Dr Connolly said he found an abrasion on her chin and bruising around her left ear and neck. He said there was swelling on part of her external genitalia and her hymen was intact.
He said his findings were consistent with the girl having been sexually abused in the past 48 hours but that there was no evidence of full vaginal penetration having occurred.
