Homeless teen assaulted host’s daughter
The 18-year-old pleaded guilty at the Children’s Court to sexual assault of the girl at her home in Dublin in 2009.
The case had been adjourned until yesterday for a probation report and a victim impact statement to be obtained.
Judge John O’Neill noted that the accused had spent three months in custody. He took into consideration the assault was a single incident, which happened when the youth was aged 16, and had not been repeated.
He suspended the sentence on condition that the teen does not re-offend within 12 months. The youth was placed on supervised probation for one year and registered as a sex offender.
Garda Claire Malone had told the court that the youth had been taken in by the girl’s family and allowed to sleep on a sofa in their living room.
The girl, now aged 14, had been in her bed when the accused entered her room, which she shared with a younger sister.
The teen got into the bottom bunk with her and “at that stage started to feel her chest and vagina areas through her outer clothing”.
The girl felt violated and left the room.
“When she came back in, he was still in the bottom bunk,” Gda Malone had said at an earlier hearing.
“She got into the top bunk, in her words to ‘protect her little sister’,” said Gda Malone, adding that the girl still gets upset when asked about the assault.
The youth used cannabis before the incident and was upset at the time because “no one wanted him”.
He was taken from his mother’s care because of her alcohol problem and he went to live with his father in an violent environment.
He began living rough at the age of 14, accessed emergency accommodation and afterwards was taken in by the girl’s family.
The youth, who had one prior conviction for a motoring offence, had suffered from depression and recently attempted to take his own life, the court had heard.
