Man convicted of abusing boy (7)

CHILD ASSAULTED AFTER MUM SENT OUT ON ERRAND

A WEXFORD man has been convicted of orally raping his then partner’s seven-year-old son after sending the boy’s mother out on an errand.

The 33-year-old man had pleaded not guilty at the Central Criminal Court to one count of oral rape at his rented home in Wexford on a date between March 1, 2013 and September 30, 2013. He cannot be named to protect the identity of the now 11-year-old boy.

The jury returned its verdict following just over four hours deliberation on day six of the trial.

Mr Justice Paul Butler revoked the man’s bail and remanded him in custody for sentence on April 3.

The jury were shown a video of the boy being interviewed by specialist gardaí in March 2014. He was eight at the time of the interview.

He said on the tape that his mother had left him with her then boyfriend in his home because she had to go to the shop. He named the man and said he wasn’t very nice and made him perform a sexual act.

He said afterwards he went to the sink and kept spitting. He said he felt like he was going to be sick and he had a ‘very bad pain in my tummy’.

The boy told gardaí that the accused had called him over and pulled down his (the accused’s) pants before he made him perform the sexual act. He said the man threatened to put him out in the rain if he didn’t do as he was asked.

The boy said the man wasn’t very nice and said the whole incident was disgusting. He said he told his aunty what happened months later and she later told his mother.

The boy was then cross-examined by video-link by Aidan Doyle SC, defending.

Counsel told the boy that they were in court because his client said that he never did anything like this to him and that he was making up the whole story. The boy refused to accept this.

He agreed that he went home with his mother shortly after the assault and that even though he was upset he never told her what had happened.

The boy accepted a suggestion from Mr Doyle that he told his aunt about what the man had done after he was in a bit of trouble with her.

The boy’s aunt told the jury that he disclosed the abuse to her in December 2013. She said he told her he was too embarrassed to use the word ‘willy’ and she suggested that he use the word carrot instead.

The child’s mother told John O’Kelly SC, prosecuting that she had been in a relationship with the accused for a few months.

She said she and her son often visited him in his rented home in Wexford.

The woman said on a wet evening in September the man asked her to go out and collect one of his sisters to bring her to the other sister’s home. She said she asked her son if he wanted to come too but he was distracted by the television so she left him alone with the accused.

She said when she returned the boy was in the bathroom where he remained for quite a while. They left shortly afterwards. She said he didn’t say anything to her on the journey home.

She first heard of the allegation in December 2013 when her sister brought it to her attention.