A teenager has been found guilty by a majority verdict of the rape and sexual assault of a girl in a car at Limerick Racecourse when he was 13 and she was 16.
The now 15-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was convicted on both counts by a margin of 10 to one at the Central Criminal Court in Cork on Monday.
The 11-person jury will resume deliberations on Tuesday in relation to a second youth who is also charged with rape and sexual assault of the girl at Limerick Racecourse in Patrickswell on December 26th, 2022. He was 15 at the time of the alleged offence.
The jury will also resume deliberating whether a third youth is guilty of aiding and abetting the other two and of falsely imprisoning the girl on the same date. He was 15 at the time.
No dress and no refund: A reader’s saga ordering clothes online from an ‘Irish’ firm that used stock images for staff photos
Ryan Adams at Vicar Street: A gig that nobody will forget anytime soon, but perhaps not for all the right reasons
The American counter-revolution is being led by Dow Jones, S&P and Nasdaq
Alzheimer’s: ‘I’ve lost my friend and my companion,’ says Úna Crawford O’Brien of fellow Fair City actor Bryan Murray
The complainant previously told the court she met the boys for the first time when she went to Limerick racecourse with her friends.
She said she agreed to get into a car, the accused who was 13 took his pants down and had sex with her without her consent.
She said she told him she did not want to have sex with him. She recalled telling him “no”. She also said she told him she had her period.
After the first boy raped her, a second boy got into the back seat of the car and “did the same thing”, she said.
Tom Creed SC, for the 13-year-old (now 15) said his client believed the sex was consensual.
Under questioning from him, the complainant said she had agreed to go somewhere private to kiss one of the boys.
The girl said this was after some alcohol and she “wasn’t exactly thinking properly” or as she “usually would”.
Defence barrister Vincent Heneghan SC, representing the then 15-year-old accused of rape (now 17) said his client admitted to having sex with the girl but claimed “it was consensual”.
Mr Heneghan said his client maintains that the complainant initiated the sexual contact and took off her underwear while helping him take off his clothes. The young woman said she disagreed with this “whole story” as laid out.
The jury also heard an official Garda recording of a specialist interview with the girl that took place shortly after the alleged incident.
During the interview she said she was “freaked” by what had happened to her.
She said that when she got out of the car, she told her friends what had occurred. She said her parents brought her to a Sexual Assault Treatment Unit.
During his closing speech for the prosecution last week, Dean Kelly SC said the boys were cackling, laughing and encouraging each other as they acted as a group in the car.
He said the three wanted the jury to believe the complainant was “a nasty, evil, mendacious liar”.
Mr Kelly said the reality was that the boys took “what they wanted from her physically and sexually whether she wanted to or not”.
Tom McInerney SC, defending the now 17-year-old boy charged with false imprisonment and aiding and abetting the other boys, said he was not suggesting that the girl is a liar.
He suggested that when the girl left the car and returned to her friends “things took a different turn” and there were “some elements of regret”.
