Suspended sentence for man who abused friend’s son

A KILDARE man has escaped a jail term for sexually assaulting his friend’s teenage son while he was babysitting him, taking him on forest walks and fishing trips.

The 44 year old, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the child, told his victim that he was gay and had been sexually abused himself as a young boy when he attended an industrial school.

The court heard the man started to work as a rent boy on leaving the school.

Most of the abuse involved the man touching the teenager outside his clothing but he also molested him by touching both his penis and his behind under his clothing.

The court heard that the man took photographs of the boy in his boxer shorts and molested him while claiming to fix the underwear.

The first time he abused him he gave him €5 and told him not to mention it to his “mam and dad”. On the final incident, when the victim asked him to stop because he “didn’t want to do it”, the man stopped and said “sorry buddy”.

The man pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to two representative counts of sexual assault on dates in 2006 and 2008 when the boy was between 14 and 16. The man was registered a sex offender.

His defence counsel, Pieter Le Vert BL, asked Judge Nolan to take into account his client’s admissions and the fact that he had stopped molesting the boy when the victim asked him to do so.

Judge Nolan said the sexual assaults varied from the minor to the more serious but said he had abused the trust of the victim and his family.

“Children are entitled to their innocence and through his actions he damaged that innocence but hopefully what he has done will not have serious long-term consequences,” he said.

Judge Nolan said he accepted that “by any standards” the man had a difficult upbringing and said he had been left with a “horrendous burden to carry”.

He accepted the man had since undergone counselling and said he seemed to have gone a long way in attempting to “cure himself of whatever impulses he had”.

“I take the view that he has somewhat dealt with his problem and that he is not a substantial risk to society,” Judge Nolan said, having considered a number of reports before the court.

He sentenced the man to 18 months in prison, suspended in full on condition he keeps the peace and is of good behaviour for three years and remains under probation supervision for two years.