Schoolgirl says alleged rapist was her boyfriend

A 13-year-old Carlow schoolgirl, who gave evidence by video-link, has told a Central Criminal Court jury that she could have …

A 13-year-old Carlow schoolgirl, who gave evidence by video-link, has told a Central Criminal Court jury that she could have sent 3,000 text messages over three months to a Laois teenager charged with orally raping her.

The girl also told the jury that the accused was her boyfriend to whom she gave oral sex twice in a field in her home town.

The now 19-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to two charges of oral rape and sexual assault of the then primary schoolgirl on a date between January 1st and February 28th, 2006, in a Carlow town.

The girl told Anthony Sammon SC, prosecuting, that her 17- year-old girlfriend first introduced her to the accused at Christmas time. A couple of days later she met with him in a field.

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The girl said he was her boyfriend at the time and that they fancied each other. She agreed with Paddy McCarthy SC, defending, that she told the accused she was going to the secondary school but denied that she told him she was 16 years old.

"I told him I was 15," she told Mr McCarthy.

She said she did not think she was more grown up for her age. She admitted she wore make-up at the time but denied that she wore tops that showed off her breasts. She agreed that she had arranged to meet the accused the first time after sending him text messages and talking to him on the phone.

She said when she told her 17- year-old friend that she was going to meet him, her friend told her "to meet him for the laugh".

The girl denied that they were both trying to make fun of the accused but accepted that her friend thought he was "a bit of an eejit". She said that when she met him the first day, they were kissing "for some time" and touching each other but she said she did not agree to touching him in the way she described earlier.

"He didn't ask me to, he told me to," the girl replied. She denied Mr McCarthy's suggestion that she played games with him and agreed with him that she knew a lot of words with sexual connotations.

When she met him a second time, they were again kissing a lot and they held hands as they left the field together.

She told Mr McCarthy that her 17-year-old friend either arrived on the scene or was at the scene every time she met him but that she didn't like him from the start.

The hearing continues before Ms Justice Maureen Clark and a jury of five women and seven men.