10 years’ jail for raping 14-year-old in field

A man has been jailed for 10 years for raping a 14-year-old girl in a field as she walked to her friend’s house.

Martin Stokes, 24, was convicted on Tuesday after a 17-day trial during which he called the girl a liar and claimed she was an enthusiastic consenting party.

Stokes was linked to the crime by DNA and by about 10 witnesses who saw him in the area at the time. He initially denied even knowing the girl but when the case came to trial for a second time he claimed he had consensual sex with her.

In his last case before retirement, Mr Justice Carroll Moran said that, in his 18 years on the bench, he had never seen such “obvious mendacity”. He said he wonders what effect Stokes’ lies had on the jury, who might otherwise have acquitted him.

“If he continues to protest his innocence he cannot be surprised when no one believes him because of his history of lying,” the judge said.

He imposed a 12-year sentence with the final two years suspended on strict conditions. He ordered that Stokes has no contact with the victim or her family, including by social media, and that he registers his address with gardaí on his release.

Stokes initially refused to enter an oath to comply with these conditions, saying: “I’m not signing no bond. Give me the two [years] on top.”

After a short discussion with his counsel, he agreed to enter the oath but added: “I swear on this bible that I’m appealing this.”

As he was led away, he pointed at gardaí and said he would see them again.

During the trial, the defence used posts from the girl’s Facebook account and texts messages about her sexual history in an attempt to disprove her story.

Over the course of two and a half days of cross-examination, defence counsel Padraig Dwyer SC put text messages to the victim in which she describes performing sex acts with a boy.

She denied she had carried out the acts, saying: “It looks like that but I didn’t do it. Maybe I was trying to act cool to my friends at the time and I was silly and stupid.”

The prosecution told the jury that these messages were part of the “unreality of social media”.

Pauline Walley SC submitted that the cross-examination was an ordeal for the girl and that Stokes had characterised her as a liar.

In her victim impact statement, which she read to the court herself, the girl said she suffered “a horrific sexual attack”. She said she now suffers from panic attacks, anxiety, and depression and that she started self-harming after the rape. She also has suicidal thoughts. She said her teenage years had been taken from her and that she and her family had to move towns because of the rape. She said that she has no interest in dating men and does not like going anywhere alone. The court also heard that she received a threat on Facebook relating to the rape, but that this was not from Stokes.

During the trial, Stokes had several outbursts as he sat in the defendant’s area. At the sentencing hearing, he appeared to be getting highly agitated until the judge allowed his father to sit with him in an effort to calm him down. In her submission to the court, the girl said one of Stokes’ outbursts during the trial had caused her to have a panic attack.

The prosecution told Mr Justice Moran the victim would like the accused to be named publicly.

The defence argued that this would have a negative effect on Stokes’ large family but the judge said this was not a good enough reason to not identify him.

Stokes, of Corkhill, Kinnegad, Co Westmeath, pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to defilement of a child under the age of 15 at a location in Westmeath on June 3, 2011. He also denied raping the woman, and two counts of sexual assaulting her on the same occasion. He was found guilty on all charges.