Boy sentenced to 15 months in detention for rape of 13-year-old in Galway

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

A 16-year-old boy was sentenced to three years in detention, with the final 21 months suspended, after his conviction for three charges of oral rape and one charge of rape of a 13-year-old girl he had been dating. He will serve 15 months at Oberstown Detention Centre. The offences occurred in County Galway between June and July 2023, when he was 14 and the girl was 13.

The judge ordered three years of post-release Probation Service supervision and barred the boy from contacting the complainant. He was also placed on the sex offenders’ register for three years. The boy continues to deny the offending and does not accept the jury’s verdicts, his counsel told the court.

The judge said the defendant had acknowledged in a probation report that he watched pornography from a very young age and that it was his source of sexual knowledge. The court also heard that he had unrestricted access to a smartphone from an early age.