A man who raped a teenage girl in a park after plying her with alcohol and telling her “age is just a number” has been jailed for five and a half years.
Nicolas Horvath (28), formerly of Stonecourt, Roscommon, Co Roscommon, pleaded guilty to one count of rape on December 11th, 2020. He has been in custody since he was extradited from Slovakia in 2022.
The victim was 16 at the time and was socialising and drinking alcohol in a park with her friends when the man and his friend joined them. They were unknown to each other prior to this, the Central Criminal Court heard.
Horvath and his friend got more alcohol, and the group continued to drink.
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He started talking to the girl, who told him she was 16. He replied, “Age is just a number”, and encouraged her to drink more alcohol.
A local garda told Gerard Clarke SC, prosecuting, that the conversation became sexual.
Horvath took the girl to a more secluded area of the park, where he raped her. The victim said no to the man and tried to push him away.
One of her female friends found them, and Horvath got up when she shone the torch of her phone at them.
The victim later told her mother, and a complaint was made to gardaí who searched Horvath’s home a few days later, seizing items of clothing which matched CCTV images.
Horvath left the jurisdiction shortly afterwards, and has been in custody since he was extradited back to Ireland in December 2022 on a European Arrest Warrant.
Imposing sentence on Friday, Ms Justice Melanie Greally said there were a number of aggravating factors in the case, including the fact the man was aware of the youth of the girl, there was an element of sexual exploitation involved in the crime, and he used alcohol to impair her judgment.
Ms Justice Greally noted Horvath engaged in “sexually aggressive, graphic, vulgar and age-inappropriate” language with the child, plied her with alcohol to the point where she felt she could not refuse, and then took her to a secluded spot where he raped her.
Ms Justice Greally handed down a sentence of six and a half years and suspended the final year on a number of conditions, including that he leave the jurisdiction within seven days of his release and not return for 15 years.
In a victim impact statement read to the court at a previous hearing, the teenager said she had been left with a feeling of “shame, sadness, anger and disgust all in one” after the rape. She said she felt her body “did not belong to me”, and attends therapy to deal with panic attacks.
She said the rape was “degrading” and “fundamentally changes a person to their core”, describing it as the “most dehumanising and humiliating thing” that can happen.
The man has five previous convictions for minor road traffic offences.
Kenneth Fogarty SC, defending, told the court his instructions were that his client had left the jurisdiction due to his child’s health issue. He has two young children who are living abroad with his partner.
A letter of apology from Horvath was read to the court. He took the stand and told the court he accepted responsibility for his actions and understood the hurt he had caused the victim.
He said he wishes to return to his family and provide for his young children once he has served his sentence.
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