Teenager pleads guilty to rape of girl, 15

A rapist shared a bottle of vodka before launching a depraved attack on a teenage girl, a court heard today.

Michael Quinn, 18, went on the drinking binge with another youth who held back and robbed the girl’s three young friends.

He later used a stolen mobile phone to gloat over the assault to her mother.

After a judge told the pair they will be sentenced next week, Quinn smirked and taunted police officers as he was led from the dock at Belfast Crown Court.

He pleaded guilty to rape, indecent assault and false imprisonment after going on trial last month.

Quinn subjected the girl, from the north of England and 15 at the time, to a terrifying ordeal while she was staying with friends in west Belfast in August 2005.

He threatened her with a screwdriver before forcing her to perform a sex act and then raping her twice – first at a filling station forecourt and then a nearby golf centre.

At the same time Terence McKenna, armed with a metal bar, ordered three teenage boys with her to hand over their belongings, the court heard.

McKenna, of Finaghy Road North, Belfast, can be named for the first time after turning 18 this week.

He has admitted false imprisonment and robbery.

McKenna’s lawyer stressed he knew nothing of the sexual assaults or the phone call when the victim’s mother was told: “I enjoyed raping your girl.”

Emphasising his client’s remorse, Hugh Kennedy QC told how McKenna drank alcopops and, for the first time, spirits on the night of the attack.

“There was a bottle of vodka consumed by the two boys,” he said.

“Some mixed with orange juice but a lot undiluted.”

As McKenna, dressed in a shirt and tie, and Quinn, wearing a light-blue jumper, sat together in the dock, the girl listened just feet away in the public gallery.

Along with a mobile phone, a necklace and £10.50 in cash were stolen from her, a Crown lawyer said.

Brian McCartney QC, told how Quinn, of Glasvey Drive, Dunmurry, Belfast suffers from Attention Deficit Disorder with an IQ of 75.

His childlike reading, spelling and numeracy standards have him in the bottom 5% of the population for intelligence, the court was told.

And Mr McCartney added that Quinn also now faces banishment from his neighbourhood due to the public outrage at the rape.

“He will no longer be able to return to that area of west Belfast and live out his days,” the lawyer said.

“It’s a particularly difficult and harrowing sentence given that this young man is still 18.”

The judge, Mr Justice Hart, remanded Quinn in custody and McKenna on bail until next Thursday.