A Kilkenny man who raped a 13-year-old girl after a teenage boy had finished having consensual sex with her has claimed that he “honestly did not know” the victim's age.
Michael O'Reilly (29), of St Marys Crescent, Hebron Road, Kilkenny city, pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to rape at a place in Dublin on April 11th, 2021.
Passing sentence on Monday, Ms Justice Eileen Creedon said the maximum sentence open to the court is life in prison. She said the Director of Public Prosecutions had advised a sentence of between 10 and 15 years, with the judge setting a headline sentence of 11 years.
Ms Justice Creedon said the victim in this case was a child, and the accused was a much older male. She added the girl “made it known in advance of meeting him that she did not wish to have sex”, however, he used his “dominance”.
The judge said the girl, in her victim impact statement, described how she was traumatised to attend court and had self-harmed in the past due to the assault.
The judge said she would consider the accused's early guilty plea, which was of significant value to the injured party in the case, as a mitigating factor. She also considered his letter of apology, his lack of previous convictions of this nature and that he had no pattern of offending of this nature.
The judge sentenced O'Reilly to nine years in prison, with the final 18 months suspended for 18 months.
He must remain under the supervision of the Probation Services for 18 months and follow all directions as outlined by them. He must also be registered as a sex offender, and his sentence was backdated from when he went into custody.
At an earlier sentence hearing, Detective Garda Darragh McNally told Fergal Foley BL, prosecuting, that a 17-year-old boy, who the victim knew, had contacted her on Snapchat and asked her if she could meet up for “feeking”, a “colloquial term for sexual intercourse”.
She agreed to meet him, but when asked by the boy if she would “engage in feeking” with the accused, she said no and that she would not have anything to do with that.
She and a female friend went to a petrol station, and O'Reilly arrived in a car with the teenage boy and a third man. The girls got into the car, and the car was driven for about 10 minutes to a gated field.
Everyone got out of the car and walked a little way, and the girl and the teenager went behind some bushes and had sexual intercourse.
The court heard, “as soon as the other male had finished, O'Reilly came over and tried to persuade her to engage in sex”.
The court heard she said no, and the accused then went behind her, grabbed her shoulders and forced her down. He took her trousers and underwear off as she struggled and repeatedly asked him to stop.
O'Reilly kept pleading with her to have sex, but she continually refused. He then forced the girl to the ground and raped her.
'That's nothing to do with me'
She was very upset afterwards, the court heard, which her female friend noticed. The men dropped the two girls back at the petrol station, and they then got on a bus. The victim told her friend what had happened.
She became upset and hysterical, and her friend phoned the other man and began shouting at him and abusing him. A woman on the bus overheard the conversation, approached the girls, and advised them to report what happened to gardaí.
The victim did go to gardaí, and O'Reilly was arrested and questioned. He denied anything to do with the events of the night, and when shown the CCTV footage from the bus of the upset girl, he said, “That's nothing to do with me” and “It doesn't make me feel anything 'cos I didn't do anything”.
He was re-arrested months later when forensic test results came back matching his DNA to semen taken from the girl's body during a sexual assault treatment examination.
He was charged and, in February last, was sent forward for trial.
In a letter of apology, he claimed he “honestly didn't know” that the girl was 13 and said he was ashamed and disgusted with himself.
In a victim impact report, the girl stated she was a child and “this monster took away my childhood”. She said that after the rape, she left school and turned to drink and tablets to cope.
I'll never be myself again.
“My whole life changed. He took a part of me. I'm hurting so bad. I'll never be myself again,” she wrote. She added that she blamed herself at times and felt so dirty “and even dirtier when people found out”.
A charge of engaging in a sexual act with a child, or defilement, was preferred against the teenage boy, but a nolle prosequi was entered on March 16th when the accused pleaded to the rape charge.
Mr Foley told the court that despite their training, the two garda specialist interviewers found it very difficult to get the victim to use “specific sexual terms such as vagina, which she eventually uttered” and that she could not bring herself to say the word “penis” at any point in the interview.
Dt Gda McNally agreed the girl was “quite a naive person”. He said her mother has only recently managed to persuade her to start counselling, adding that “she definitely needs it”.
O'Reilly has no previous convictions for sexual offending but has convictions for assault, theft and burglary.
James Dwyer SC, defending, said his client has worked in block laying and is involved with a boxing club.
He asked the court to consider that while this was a horrific offence, there was no brandishing of weapons or use of violence separate from the rape. He said there was also no gratuitous humiliation like in some cases and that it was a once-off incident.
In a letter to the victim, O'Reilly stated: “I would like to apologise to you for what happened. I am ashamed and disgusted with myself. I honestly did not know your age.
“I hope you can put what happened behind you and have a good life”.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie/services/helpline/, or visit Rape Crisis Help.
