Man found not guilty of raping cousin at her home in Cork when he was a teenager and she was five

Woman had claimed the boy, aged 15 at the time, sexually assaulted and orally raped her in a shed at the back of her house

Jury was not told this was the second trial of the case and after extensive deliberations, the first jury was unable to reach a verdict on either of the two charges. Picture: Larry Cummins

A jury unanimously decided a teenager aged about 15 was not guilty of raping and sexually assaulting his cousin when she was aged about five years back in 2011.

Ms Justice Siobhán Lankford thanked the jury of six men and six women at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork after they came back on Tuesday afternoon with their unanimous not guilty verdicts in the case against the defendant, who is now aged bout 30.

Marjorie Farrelly, prosecution senior counsel, said at the outset of the case that the jury would be concerned with two alleged incidents in Co Cork at the complainant’s home between May 2011 and September 2011, the first an alleged sexual assault, the second an oral rape.

The complainant was aged between five and six at the time and the defendant was 15 to 16, and they are cousins. His family used to visit her family on summer holidays and occasionally her family used to visit his house.

The complainant, who is now aged 20, said the defendant used to bring her, when she was a child, to a shed at the back of her house where there was a mattress on the floor. She said he interfered with her vagina using his fingers in the sexual assault and on another occasion in the shed he put his penis in her mouth — the oral rape charge.

In her evidence during the trial and in statements to gardaí, she said the defendant also threatened her with a knife.

Defence senior counsel Donal O’Sullivan said to the jury: “She said it happened. My client — when he spoke to the guards — said it did not.” 

Mr O’Sullivan said delay was an issue in the case in the sense the most recent alleged incident occurred 14 years ago.

“There might be a temptation so say, why would she say it? It must be true. But if you make that assumption, then if someone makes a complaint, there is no point in having a trial at all. The simple fact is that my client has no idea why she said it. This case is ultimately about reliability,” Mr O’Sullivan said.

He suggested the jury could not be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt because of inconsistencies between what the complainant said to the gardaí, to friends and family members, and to the jury in the witness box. 

Mr O’Sullivan said in one account, the complainant said the defendant put a knife to her throat saying if she told anyone he would kill her, but in another version, she said he held a knife to her in order to make her perform oral sex.

“It is not for you to decide she is lying or is wrong. It is a question of whether you can rely on her beyond reasonable doubt,” the defence senior counsel said.

The jury was not told this was the second trial of the case and after extensive deliberations, the first jury was unable to reach a verdict on either of the two charges, so there was a re-trial before the new jury which concluded on Tuesday. There is a legal prohibition on identifying the parties.