Man admits sexual assault of cousin

DEFENDANT’S LEGAL TEAM ARGUE AGAINST JAIL ON GROUNDS HE WAS A TEENAGER AT TIME OF OFFENCES

LAWYERS for a man who admits sexually assaulting his young cousin in the 1990s have said it would be a grotesque offence against justice to jail him now for his actions as a teenager.

The 39-year-old man pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual assault of the 13-yearold child at a place in Kerry on dates sometime in 1995 and 1996. He cannot be named at this point in order to protect the identity of the victim.

Detective Sergeant Gary Carroll told the Central Criminal Court, sitting in Dublin, that in a statement of complaint made in January 2018, the victim said that her cousin was aged around 16 when he first molested her at his family home.

Dt Sgt Carroll said the two families were very close, and the victim would often visit the home of her cousin. During one assault the older teenager rubbed his genitals up against the child outside her clothing.

Afterwards he told her not to tell her mother or she “would have a heart attack”. Dt Sgt Carroll said the victim’s mother was attending hospital with a heart complaint during this time.

On another occasion the defendant pushed his cousin down on a bed and sexually molested her. She pushed him off but was afraid to tell anyone at the time, the court heard.

She told her mother two years later that her cousin “had been touching her” and this led to a confrontation between the families in which the defendant admitted he “was at her”.

The court heard that the victim and her mother went to gardaí in around 1999 but a prosecution was not progressed at this time. The victim emigrated some time later and now lives abroad.

She was unable to attend the hearing on Wednesday due to COVID-19 restrictions but Pauline Walley SC, prosecuting, read her victim impact statement into the record.

The victim said that the sexual assaults on her left her crippled with shame and guilt, and she began self-harming as a child.

She said she stills suffers from flashbacks in which she relives the abuse and the attacks have made relationships more difficult and affected her marriage.

“I shake in fear when I recall what you did to me,” she wrote. She said that she believed at the time it must have been her fault.

In a letter to the victim, read out in court by defence counsel Anthony Sammon SC, the man said he was sorry and he didn’t realise at the time the effect his actions would have.

“I was young and made a terrible mistake. I didn’t know what I was doing was wrong,” he wrote.

Mr Sammon provided references from relatives of his client which described his client as “a good man who acknowledges his wrong doing”.

One referee said the defendant was “extremely remorseful” and described him as a “caring and loving uncle who we trust and love”.

Counsel asked the court to consider a non-custodial sentence and said it would be “grotesque” and an offence against justice for his client to be incarcerated for his actions as a young boy.

He submitted also that the man is a carer for both his parents.

He said that if the assaults had been reported at the time, it might have resulted in a therapeutic response. He said that custody is normally considered the very last resort in child offending.

Justice Tara Burns adjourned sentencing to June 18 next and remanded the defendant on continuing bail. The court heard that the man entered the guilty pleas on day three of a trial at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Limerick and after the victim had given her evidence.