Father jailed over sex with girl, 14, he met on dating app
A FATHER had sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old girl after meeting her on a dating app, a court heard.
David Hoban, 28, was arrested after the teenager’s mother had reported her missing as she had not returned home from school.
The girl was found in a Dublin suburb and complained that she had been raped by Hoban.
The court heard they had met through Skout, a social media app used on smartphones for dating and meeting new people.
The victim’s profile indicated she was aged 20, but Detective Garda Paul O’Hara confirmed it would have been obvious to Hoban that the girl was underage when he met her in person.
A series of WhatsApp messages sent between Hoban and the girl, read out in court, showed he was aware she was underage. There were several conversations about sexual acts and in one message the teenager said to Hoban, ‘I wish you were my age’, before she told him she loved him.
Detective Garda O’Hara told Garrett McCormack, prosecut- ing, that the teenager said she had both sex and oral sex with Hoban three times after having three meetings with him.
Hoban, of Leinster Road, Rathmines, Dublin, was 26 years old at the time. The garda agreed with Mr McCormack that the majority of the messages were instigated by the victim.
One message from Hoban read: ‘I’m sorry, you’re a lovely girl. I wish you were older and you could do what you want.’ Another said: ‘I like you a lot but things will never work out’, to which the complainant replied ,‘ Why, because I am too young?’ Hoban answered, ‘Yup.’
Mary Rose Geary SC, defending, said Hoban’s sister died in a road accident when she was a young child, while a friend of her client had also died, aged about 12. She said Hoban suffered other similar tragedies over the years which led to him drinking heavily and living a chaotic lifestyle.
Ms Gearty said Hoban took full responsibility for the offences and had started attending a forensic psychologist for treatment. He pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to two sample charges of defilement of a child by having intercourse and oral sex with the teenager on dates in June 2015.
He has ten previous convictions, all of which had been dealt with in the District Court.
Sentencing him to three years in prison, Judge Martin Nolan said Hoban should have stopped contact with the teenager when he became aware of her age at their first meeting.
‘He should have known what he was doing was morally reprehensible and against the law,’ Judge Nolan said.
The judge accepted Hoban’s plea of guilty and true remorse and said ‘his young life was troubled by great tragedy’.
‘But everyone is master of their own ship and this man didn’t make the right decision,’ Judge Nolan added. He said the age difference was substantial, adding: ‘We are talking about a grown man who should have been mature enough to stop himself and he didn’t.’
It comes as the Irish Daily Mail has been campaigning for legislation which would bring in a minimum age for ownership of smartphones.
A petition calling for this, signed by more than 2,000 readers of this newspaper, has been handed over to Communications Minister Denis Naughten.
Our calls have been echoed by Terry O’Sullivan, principal of Blennerville national school outside Tralee in Co. Kerry.
The school has introduced a round-the-clock ban on smartphones after agreement from parents.
Staff and parents have been applauded for their courage in taking this action together, and the ban has been hailed as a success by all involved. Mr O’Sullivan now says it time for the Government to introduce a minimum age for smartphone ownership.
‘If the Government legislates, it will definitely help an awful lot… parents can turn around and say to their child, “Well, the legislative age for a smartphone is 14 or 16, and you can’t get a phone,’ he has told the Mail.
A Government-led forum on digital safety last month failed to address parents’ concerns but allowed tech giants such as Facebook to have their say.