Man found guilty of sex assault on girl

The man who explained his semen being on the hand of a 10-year-old girl as possibly resulting from her “experimenting” on him as he slept was yesterday found guilty of sexually assaulting her.

Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin remanded the accused in custody for sentencing on May 5, after the jury made a majority 11-1 verdict at Cork Circuit Criminal Court on the third day of a trial.

Blaise O’Carroll, defending, asked for a probation report to be prepared before sentencing. He wanted particular focus on how the defendant would be reintegrated into society.

“He seems to be a lonesome, pathetic figure,” the judge said.

“I was in a mental home for a while,” the defendant said as he cried following the jury verdict, with reference made to psychiatric issues in his past.

The complainant said he lay down behind her, rubbed her back, grabbed her hand, and made her rub “his private”. She said he put his penis against her bum and she could feel something sticky on her hand.

The accused said that he had been going out with the complainant’s mother for two or three months before the incident and that things were moving quickly and they were talking about marriage.

The mother said the accused was not her boyfriend and that she had been getting to know him before deciding if their relationship would advance and become a sexual one.

The accused and the girl’s mother both said they never had sexual intercourse.

The accused testified that he might have ejaculated some sperm on to a sheet when fondling with his girlfriend and that the child might have touched the sheet and got sperm on her hand in that way.

Interviewing gardaí put it to the accused that semen had been found on her hand after she made the complaint to her mother and later to gardaí, and that it must have been his semen as he was the only man in the house at the time.

He replied: “I would love to say it is not mine unless she was experimenting.”

He told gardaí that, since he was accused of this offence, he had done a lot of research on this area. He said he had seen on television that children as young as eight were involved in ‘sext-ing’. “The only thing I can think of is that she was experimenting on me when I was asleep,” he said.

In the witness box yesterday, the 39-year-old said: “It is a fucking disgrace — sorry for cursing — but I’m after being punished for three years over this.

“I come from a republican family. We don’t dream of this kind of things.”