A YOUNG woman yesterday told a court of having sex in a national school shelter with an older man when she was 13 years old.
The woman, who is now 20, said she had full sex three times in three successive nights with the man who was then aged 19.
Eileen O’Leary, prosecuting, told the jury that there was no suggestion that the defendant forced himself on the girl. Ms O’Leary also told the jury that the girl’s consent could not be a defence when she was under 15.
The man, who is now 26, has denied three alleged sex assaults on the girl in September 2003 in a south Co Donegal school shelter.
The woman told Donegal Circuit Court that she met the man in a fast-food cafe when he was going out with one of her older friends.
Then, a few weeks later, on September 17th, 2003, she started going with him.
On September 18th, they paid a visit to a school at night-time when they waited for a security light to switch off near the shelter.
“He knew I was on a contraceptive injection and he did not use a condom. I lay on the bench. He got on top of me on the bench and we had sex. We had sex for around 15 minutes.”
They had sex in the same place the following two nights.
The woman, who admitted skipping school and drinking and smoking with her friends at 13, told Judge Gerard Griffin and a jury of 10 men and two women that when she visited a friend, they used to play with Barbie dolls. She added: “This was at the same time I was having sex with older men.”
A statement to Garda Liam Feeney was read in court in which the defendant said he believed the girl was 17 and she made the first move when she sat on his lap and started kissing him outside a hospital. He went out with her for three or four months. He was disbelieving when told by questioning gardaí she was 14 at the time.
During that time they had sex about twice a fortnight.
The hearing continues today.