Man jailed after fathering baby with girl, 16

A judge yesterday jailed a 34-year-old man after he fathered a baby with a girl aged 16.

Judge Gerald Keys, at Ennis Circuit Court, sentenced Anthony Conway to four years in jail with the final year suspended for the defilement of the girl on dates between September and December 2013. Conway of Hector St, Kilrush, was on the sex offender’s register at the time.

Judge Keys lifted the restriction preventing Conway from being named after the court was told the victim, who was not in court, wanted him to be named.

Judge Keys said Conway had engaged in predatory behaviour “and took advantage of the age gap between him and the girl at the time where she could have been easily influenced”.

He said an aggravating factor was that Conway had already been convicted of sexual acts against minors between 1996 and 2002. He was previously jailed for four years in 2004 for five counts of buggery and 11 counts of sexual assault of five victims, four male and one female, who were aged 10 to 14 years at the time.

Last year, a judge made an order that Conway not have any social media profile. He was also ordered not to have any contact with the girl and their baby.

Judge Keys referred to the order in his judgment saying: “This is not a case of a young man meeting a girl of a similar age. On the contrary, despite being twice her age and warned of her age by her father, brother, and a guard, Mr Conway continued to ignore these warnings and proceeded to have a sexual relationship with her at the time when she was a child and engage in a sexual act when she had just reached her 16th birthday.”

He referred to Conway’s prior record for sexual deviancy and said: “You have shown no remorse or appreciation of your conduct and the long-term consequences of your actions.

“Your past record and inappropriate conduct at the time of this offence and decision to ignore warnings given to you suggests to me that the risk of you re-offending cannot be ruled out.”

Judge Keys said the gravity of the offence placed it at the top end of the spectrum.

Det Garda Donal Corkery said the baby was conceived shortly after the girl’s 16th birthday. The detective said the victim’s phone number was found on Conway’s phone under ‘My Baby’s Mamma’ and gardaí retrieved a sonogram of an image of an unborn child from Conway’s address.

He said DNA evidence confirmed the baby, born in 2014, was the child of Conway and the under-age girl.

Det Corkery said the accused admitted having sex with the girl in Halloween 2013 but said that he thought the girl was not under-age.

In his plea, counsel for the accused, Pat Whyms, said: “This is not a repeat offence harking back to 1996 where the offences of buggery and sexual assault against a significant number of people took place and those offences could be described as opportunistic and predatory. This is not a predatory or opportunistic attack by one person on another.”

Conway had been on remand in custody since September 16, 2015, and Judge Keys back-dated the sentence to that date.