A KILDARE youth who had sex with a 14-year-old girl has been jailed for one year by Mr Justice Paul Carney at the Central Criminal Court.
Paul O'Connor (19), Greenfield Close, Maynooth, pleaded guilty to having sexual intercourse "with a child under the age of 15 years" in June 2006.
Mr Justice Carney noted yesterday that this was the first case of "defilement of a girl under 15 years" as enacted in 2006 legislation to come before the court and which the Oireachtas believed merited up to life imprisonment.
He had been told by Dan Boland, prosecuting, that the Director of Public Prosecutions had regarded the case as being at the lowest end of the sentence scale.
Mr Boland said the issue of consent was "slightly problematic" in view of the fact that O'Connor and the girl had had consensual intercourse two weeks previously.
Patrick Gageby SC, defending, had submitted that the case would have been dealt with in the Circuit Criminal Court but for the fact that the DPP started out with a charge of rape.
He said the DPP now did not 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 have regard to the fact that there was "nothing deviant" involved.
Mr Justice Carney also directed that O'Connor undergo 12 months of post-release supervision and that his name be entered on the register of sex offenders as per statute.
Det Garda Des Brannock told Mr Boland that four days after they first met, the teenagers had had consensual sex, about a fortnight before the offence which had come before the court.
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.
O'Connor told gardaí he did not realise it was illegal to have sex with a girl of that age and his parents did not know he was dating a 14-year-old girl.
Det Garda Brannock said O'Connor had told gardaí that on the night of the crime he had been drinking and had 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.
O'Connor claimed they each undressed and denied to gardaí who interviewed him that he took her trousers off and threatened to tear her top off if she did not remove it.
He denied "forcing" her down.
Det Garda Brannock told Mr Boland that O'Connor agreed she asked him to "stop" after about one or two minutes.
O'Connor said "the main problem" was that he was drunk that night but he told gardaí: "She knew we were going to have sex when we went to the shed."
Det Garda Brannock said O'Connor agreed that he had phoned 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.
O'Connor agreed he had asked her not to go to the Garda and claimed that she agreed she would not, but told him they were "finished" together.
Det Garda Brannock agreed with Mr Gageby that O'Connor had co-operated fully with gardaí and was in ignorance of the legal situation about the girl's age.