Garda probe after girls on run from centre raped

GARDAI are concerned about security at a centre for girls at risk after two teenagers claimed they were raped when they absconded from the unit.

The two 16-year-old residents say they were raped after leaving the Southern Health Board-run Gleann Álainn special care unit in Glanmire, Co Cork. In January this year, a 15-year-old girl told gardaí she was raped by a man in a Cork City centre flat when she was on the run from the centre. The teenagers are not sent to the unit for crime, but because of their difficult behaviour.

Gardaí have questioned a teenage boy after an incident last Sunday week, when one of the girls said he raped her in a wooded area near a funfair a few miles from Gleann Álainn. She had cycled away from her female carer during an outing and met the boy, who is believed to be younger than her and from the northside of Cork City.