Nine years for man with 'intellectual failings' who raped teenage boy

A 31-year-old unemployed man with "intellectual failings" has been jailed for nine years for twice raping a 13-year-old boy in a Dublin industrial estate container.

A Central Criminal Court jury convicted the man of raping the boy on August 18, 2007 after a five-day trial last February.

Mr Justice Barry White took into consideration the former newspaper seller's "lowest per cent intelligence" and said he wouldn't punish the man for "fighting his trial" even though he had pleaded not guilty to the two rape charges.

Garda Ronan Coffey told prosecution counsel Mr Paul Coffey SC that the accused had been in custody throughout the trial for another sexual assault committed while on bail for these offences.

Gda Coffey said the man handed cigarettes and beer to the boy and his teenage friends after approaching them in the industrial estate.

He said the youths tried to move away from the then 29-year-old man but he followed them into a nearby lane before taking his victim on a trip to the off-licence, where they were captured on CCTV.

The man offered to accompany the 13-year-old back to the industrial estate when the boy realised he'd left his jacket in one of the containers.

Gda Coffey told Mr Coffey (with Mr Garrett Baker BL) that the man hit the boy across the face, grabbed him by the hood, pulled down his underwear and raped him a short time after they returned to the container to find the jacket.

The now 14-year-old boy shouted until he heard his cousin calling his name.

Gda Coffey said witnesses saw the boy fix his trousers as he emerged from the container and that he looked like he'd been crying.

The garda agreed with Mr Diarmaid McGuinness SC, defending, that his client has no previous convictions and comes from a respectable family, but has low intelligence.

Mr Justice White backdated the man's sentence to when he entered custody on February 1, 2008.