A 22-year-old man who admitted raping a teenage girl at a house party has been sentenced to seven years in jail with four years of the sentence suspended.
Before passing sentence, Mr Justice Carney said he was taking all of the mitigation presented by the defence into account “on the basis of what’s come down from the Court of Criminal Appeal”.
The Central Criminal Court heard the man, who cannot be named to protect the victim, accepts his “legal and moral responsibility” and is disgusted by his actions.
He pleaded guilty to rape of the 15-year-old girl at a house in Co Waterford in March 2012.
Mr Justice Paul Carney suspended the last four years of a seven-year term on condition that the man stay away from the victim. He backdated the sentence to March 11th, 2014, and ordered the man to undergo 18 months’ post-release supervision.
The court heard the victim, the sister of the man’s then partner, had gone to his flat for a party and the accused was very drunk.
After a row with his girlfriend, the man pulled out a mattress to sleep on in the living room. He, another male and the victim lay on the mattress under a duvet.
The victim told gardaí: “We were all lying under the duvet. We were laughing and talking.”
She said she fell asleep with her clothes on and woke up later to find the man lying over her and touching her. Then she was raped.
She began crying and later said she was in total shock. She said she could see another man, who had been lying on a coach in the living room, looking down at her but she does not know whether he saw that she was crying.
The incident lasted for about five minutes and afterwards the man fell asleep. The victim left and walked home.
She told a friend on Facebook what had happened and the next day she went to gardaí with her mother.
When gardaí presented DNA evidence to the accused, he said: “Anything that did happen after I fell asleep I am not aware of.”
Mary Rose Gearty SC, defending, said: “He cannot remember these events. He fully accepts his legal and moral responsibility. The recklessness lies in having taken too much drink. He has said he is disgusted with what he did.”
She said his mother and partner, who is pregnant, are supportive of him and that he has been to Alcohol Anonymous meetings in custody.
Garda Patricia Lanigan told Michael Delaney SC, prosecuting, that the victim has become a recluse and bursts into tears in public places.
In her victim impact report the girl said she had never had sex with anyone before this incident and that the accused had torn something away from her.