The 24-year-old asked his teenage cousin ‘would you not tell any of them’ after having sex her with her at the flat he shared with his mum – it was later found he had given her chlamydia
A ‘manipulative’ drug addict has been jailed for having sex with his underage cousin after giving her cocaine.
The 24-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, infected the 16-year-old girl with chlamydia after subjecting her to the attack at the flat he shared with his mother, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard. He has been sentenced to 15 months in prison after he pleaded guilty to the offence of defilement on May 9, 2021. A second count of defilement on July 2021 at the same location was taken into account. The court heard on Monday that he was 21 at the time he committed the offences against his second cousin, and that she had been visiting her aunt, who was also the man’s neighbour, at the time. He arrived at the address in the early hours of the morning with cocaine and a bottle of vodka while the mother and aunt were not home.
The girl took some cocaine and said she had a sip of vodka before beginning to feel dizzy. He asked her to his flat to watch a boxing match and she went with him, reported the Irish Mirror. He began kissing her and told her: “If anything happens, would you not tell any of them?”
They went upstairs to his bedroom and had sexual intercourse, of which she remembered only the start. Her next memory was waking up at 7am in bed beside him; both were naked. Between that date and the date of the next offence in July of that year, the man and the girl exchanged intimate photographs after he asked her to. These were sent on the photo messaging app Snapchat, meaning they disappeared.
In July 2021, he asked her to come to his flat to look at a new scooter. She told police that she felt she had to go, as she feared she would get in trouble if he told people what had been going on. He again brought her up to his bedroom, where they had sex. She said that she felt used afterwards, that he had asked her there only for sex.
She confided in her aunt a few weeks later, and her aunt in turn told the girl’s mother, who took her to a sexual health clinic. The man had told her brother that he had chlamydia, and the victim was found to have contracted it. The man turned himself in to his local police station. He has no previous convictions.
The girl later to deliver her victim impact statement in person, and was accompanied in court by her father. Since the incident, her mother has died from cancer. The victim said her whole life had changed for the worse following the offences against her, and had dropped out of education. She became tearful when she said that she could not face other people. She said that she felt unclean after finding out she had chlamydia because of the trauma and shame. The girl said she hoped that her case would encourage other victims of this type of crime to come forward.
The accused man’s barrister said the girl had turned 17 just five months after the first incident, and that his client was four years and nine months older than her. He stated that there was no suggestion of force or coercion, and that when she first spoke to Gardaí, she said the sex was consensual and that she did not want to make a complaint. The man’s counsel said the accused fully accepts responsibility for his misconduct, in particular the ‘aggravating feature’ that he had given her chlamydia. He said: “While there was an element of manipulation in turning up to her flat at 4am with vodka and cocaine, the opportunity presented itself unexpectedly. It was opportunistic. It wasn’t violent. She was a participant, albeit an underage participant, and unable to give consent. In her mind, it was consensual.”
He said that his client had alcohol, cannabis, cocaine and ecstasy addictions since the age of 16, but has been receiving addiction support, adding : “He abused his position of trust. He took advantage of his younger cousin while in the throes of addiction.” The barrister said that his client had been offered a job as a brand ambassador with a sales and marketing company, selling door-to-door subscriptions for a charity, and was due to start this week. A probation report placed him at a moderate risk of reoffending.
Judge Martin Nolan said the fact that the incident happened twice had been an aggravating factor, and said that the accused deserved to go to prison. The judge said: “Obviously I have to take into account that she was close to the age of consent. The fact he was 21 is pertinent.” He sentenced him to 15 months in prison.