A 14-year-old schoolgirl has pleaded with a High Court judge to be allowed to see her 29-year- old boyfriend whom she said she loved. She said she did not want to wait for two years until she was 16.
An order restraining any contact between the girl and the man, a former drug addict and father of one child, was granted by Mr Justice Kelly last week on the application of lawyers for the girl's mother.
When the matter was returned yesterday, Mr Cormac Corrigan SC, for the girl's mother, asked that the order be continued. The girl and the man were in court and the girl interrupted proceedings and said she loved the man and was willing to have supervised meetings with him. "We could meet once a week. We would not even hold hands and could sit in separate chairs," she said.
Mr Justice Kelly said he would continue the order until today to allow Mr Corrigan to confer with the girl's mother. He said the man had been convicted of drug-related charges and was a drug addict.
The man said he had been a drug addict but had not come before the courts in the last four years and had been on methadone treatment for 3½ years. He was going to school and studying for the Leaving Cert.
He said he met the girl four months ago. He was told she was 16. Her mother told him she was 13 and they stopped seeing each other for a while. Nothing of a sexual nature had occurred.
The girl, who had been sitting at the back of the court, asked to be heard. "I love . . . He means more to me than anything in the world and now I am being told he is being taken away from me," she said. She admitted taking no interest in school but said that since she had met the man, she had changed her mind. She now wanted to stay in school and train to become a nurse.
Mr Justice Kelly said he could do nothing. The girl's mother was her guardian and had the girl's interests at heart. She was only 14 and the man was twice her age. There could be no question of a sexual relationship; that would be a criminal offence and the mother's concern was that there had been or was likely to be such a relationship.