Homeless man gets three years for sex with 14-year-old schoolgirl

A homeless addict has been sentenced to three years after he had sex with a school girl having met her for the first time that day while she was wearing her uniform.

Neil Moore (aged 36) admitted that he had sex with the 14-year-old girl twice but told gardaí she had kissed him first, it had been consensual and she was more into him than he was into her.

“It was a night of madness. I have a woman in my life and I am not into little girls,” Moore told gardaí having earlier explained that he had just got back with his girlfriend.

Moore pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to two charges of having sex with a child under the age of 17 years old in the Phoenix Park and a city centre B&B on March 2 and 3, 2012.

He has 14 previous convictions which had all been dealt with in the District Court and has been registered a sex offender.

Judge Mary Ellen Ring said she was satisfied it had been a chance meeting and there had been no predatory behaviour on behalf of Moore but she said he knew he was dealing with a young girl and ignored that.

“The use of alcohol influenced his own judgement and made an already vulnerable young female even more vulnerable and the court cannot overlook that,” the judge said.

She said the fact that he had sex with her twice “aggravated the element of recklessness in this case”.

“He was the adult in the situation and he knew that but he ignored it,” Judge Ring said before she added that he had manipulated the situation.

She suspended the last 12 months of the sentence on condition that Moore engage with the Probation Service for 12 months upon his release and engage in any sexual offender programme they deem suitable.

Garda Ciaran McGeough agreed with Caroline Biggs SC, defending, that it had been a chance meeting and Moore had not been patrolling the streets looking for underage girls to have sex with.

He accepted that the man “did not fit the profile of a paedophile” and he seemed genuinely sorry for his behaviour.

Gda McGeough further accepted that the teenager was “a vulnerable young girl” having been in foster care from a very young age. Her foster family were also aware that she had been in a sexual relationship for the previous two and half years and had raised concerns about it.

Gda McGeough told Roisin Lacey BL, prosecuting, that while the girl was wearing her school uniform at the time, she told Moore she was 17 years old when she first met him at Temple Bar. She had mitched from school and got the train from her home into the city centre.

A victim impact report was prepared for the court but not read out.

Ms Biggs submitted to the court that while the girl told her client that she was 17 years old he never raised the defence of “reasonable or honest mistake” and pleaded guilty.

She said Moore who had previously worked as a commis chef had both a drink and drug problem but was on methadone maintenance at the time.

Ms Biggs said her client accepts that what he did was “fundamentally wrong and disgraceful”.