A KILDARE youth who had sex with a 14-year-old girl is to be sentenced by the Central Criminal Court.
The Maynooth youth, now aged 19, pleaded guilty to having sexual intercourse "with a child under the age of 15 years" in a Kildare town on the night of June 29-30, 2006. He had no previous convictions.
Mr Justice Paul Carney noted this was the first case of "defilement of a girl under 15 years" as enacted in the 2006 legislation to come before the court and that the Oireachtas believed it merited life imprisonment.
Detective Garda Des Brannock told prosecuting counsel, Dan Boland that four days after they first met the teenagers had consensual sex, about a fortnight before.
They met several times again and while they agreed in discussions that they would have sex again, he said they only kissed on these dates.
The youth told gardaí he didn't realise it was illegal to have sex with a girl of that age and his parents didn't know he was dating a 14-year-old girl.
Det Gda Brannock said the youth told gardaí that on the night of the crime he had been drinking and phoned her to meet him. They went hand-in-hand to a shed and he said she agreed to having sex there after telling him she had to be home in 45 minutes.
Det Gda Brannock told Mr Boland that the youth agreed "the main problem" was that he was drunk that night but told gardaí: "She knew we were going to have sex when we went to the shed."
Det Gda Brannock said the youth agreed that he rang her afterwards after being told by another person that he had raped her but he denied threatening her or saying he would burn her house down.
The youth agreed also that he asked her not to go to the Garda and claimed she agreed she wouldn't but told him they were "finished" together.
Det Gda Brannock agreed with defence counsel, Patrick Gageby that the youth co-operated fully with gardaí and was in ignorance of the legal situation about the girl's age.
Mr Boland told Mr Justice Carney that the Director of Public Prosecutions regarded the case as being at the lowest end of the sentence scale. The issue of consent was "slightly problematic" in view of the fact there had been consensual intercourse two weeks previously.
Mr Gageby submitted that the case would have been dealt with in the Circuit Criminal Court but for the DPP starting out with a rape charge. He said the DPP now didn't consider it was a rape case and regarded it at the lower end of the scale. The court had also to apply "the youth factor" and there was "nothing deviant" involved.
Mr Justice Carney said he "would have expected more help from the DPP" regarding sentence in this case and he would need time to consider sentence. He remanded the 19-year-old on bail.