Man defiled girl of 13

Six-year sentence for getting child to carry out sex acts after engaging with her via Facebook, Skype and texting

A MAN has been jailed for six-and-half-years for the online sexual exploitation and defilement of a 13-yearold girl he communicated with via Skype, Facebook and text messages.

Darragh Meehan was 19years-old when he met the teenager.

He exposed himself and engaged in sex acts during Skype sessions and invited the girl to carry out sex acts. During a meeting in person Meehan engaged in sexual activity with the teenage girl.

The girl’s mother contacted gardaí after finding concerning messages on her laptop.

Meehan of Dargle Wood, Knocklyon, Dublin, pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to one count of defilement and three counts of sexual exploitation of the girl on dates between December 2011 and May 2012. He has no previous convictions.

Garda Sharon Duncan told Tara Burns SC, prosecuting, how Meehan and the girl met in December 2011. Shortly afterwards they began communicating via Facebook, Skype and texts on a very regular basis.

The girl told Meehan she was 13years-old, the court heard.

The Skype communication took the form of being able to see each other without audio and texting to speak to each other. He began asking her to take her clothes off. In late December 2011 Meehan exposed himself and invited the girl to carry out a sex act.

On a number of further occasions Meehan exposed himself and performed a sex act on camera during the Skype sessions. He also invited her in some Skype sessions to engage in sex acts.

On a date in March 2012 the pair made an arrangement to meet in a local park. They began to kiss and Meehan asked the girl to carry out a sex act. There was further kissing afterwards before Meehan put his hand into her clothes. She asked him to stop and he did.

They kissed again and he asked her to carry out a sex act. She initially declined but Meehan persisted and she began before immediately stopping. They then went home and had no further contact for some time.

Later in 2012 the girl’s mother noticed concerning messages on her laptop and the gardaí were alerted. Meehan was identified as a suspect and interviewed. The victim, who is now 19, said in her impact statement she had been going through a tough time at the time of the offences and felt quite low.

She said after meeting Meehan he quickly became someone she confided in and said he made her feel special. ‘I feel he used my vulnerability to his advantage to get what he wanted,’ she said.

She said afterwards she was angry and upset at what had happened and just wanted to forget about it. She said people told her at the time that it was not her fault but she could not see it.

‘It was something that happened to me, not something I made happen,’ she said. She described going through a ‘whirlwind of emotion’ and becoming protective of younger people around her as well as distrustful of new people. She said seeing someone who looked like Meehan transported her back to the young girl she was at the time.

The woman said she had been in a bad place at the beginning of this process but now felt stronger and was hopeful her quality of life would continue to improve.

Seán Gillane SC, defending, said Meehan had written a letter of apology to the victim. Meehan accepted what he did was wrong and was ‘wholeheartedly sorry’.

Mr Gillane said Meehan had not come to any further attention in the six years since the offences. He handed in testimonials and a reference.

Judge Patrick McCarthy said that Meehan had groomed the victim whom he described as ‘a child in the full sense’.

He noted she did not resist Meehan but said she had not given ‘true consent’. ‘She was induced to submit because of the manipulation and grooming that had taken place,’ the judge said.

He sentenced Meehan to sixand-a-half years for the defilement charge and a concurrent five years for the charges of sexual exploitation.

Groomed ‘a child in the full sense’