Dublin man jailed for rape

A 28-year-old Dublin man who raped a girl half his age who was sleeping in his flat has been jailed for four years by the Central Criminal Court.

He had pleaded guilty to raping the then 16-year-old girl on March 11, 2000 at an address on North Circular Road.

Prosecuting counsel Mr Gregory Murphy SC told Mr Justice Carney the accused man had been a trusted freind of the girl’s family.

She often stayed overnight in his flat where she would sleep on the couch.

Nothing untoward happened between them until the rape took place.

The evening before the accused man and the girl had gone out for a drink and had returned to his flat with a few cans of Budweiser with them.

After drinking some they both went to bed.

The accused told her she could sleep in his bed that night and he would take the couch.

In the early hours of the morning the girl woke up to the accused man penetrating her.

Sergeant Karen Maloney said the girl had been ‘frozen with fear’ and had pretended to be asleep until he left the room.

She had then gone outside and called gardai.

Before gardai arrested him later in the morning, the accused sent two text messages to her mobile phone.

One of them said: "I can’t explain what happened. I don’t know myself."

Shortly afterwards he sent her another message, which said: "Goodbye. Hopefully you will forgive me next time we meet. Goodbye."

Defence counsel, Mr Brendan Grogan SC, said despite the descrepancy in their ages, his client had a ‘crush’ on the young girl at the time.

He had made an ‘opportunistic’ move, and was deeply remorseful about the whole incident.

Mr Grogan said the accused man wished to apologise to the girl and to her family and wanted the court to know that he had not intended to harm her.

Mr Justice Carney said when cases such as this where victims claim they were raped while sleeping are put before juries, they often appear reluctant to convict the accused.

He also noted that there was no violence involved and, compared to most other cases heard in the Central Criminal Court, it belonged to the lower end of the scale.

He suspended the last 18 months of the sentence taking into consideration the accused man’s guilty plea.

The man, a cleaner by occupation, was also added to the Sex Offenders Register as provided for in the Sex Offenders Act 2001.