Man jailed for sexual exploitation of teenage girl

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

A Dublin man was jailed for six-and-a-half years at the Central Criminal Court for defilement and sexual exploitation of a teenage girl. He will also be registered as a sex offender. The proceedings were reported on 7 March 2018.

He pleaded guilty to one charge of defilement of a child and three charges of sexual exploitation. The offences took place between December 2011 and May 2012.

The court heard that he was 19 when he met the 13-year-old girl and began contacting her through Facebook, Skype and text messages. He performed sexual acts during Skype contact and invited her to do the same. He later met her in person and engaged in a sexual act with her. Her mother discovered messages on her computer and reported them to gardaí.

Defence counsel Sean Gillane said the offences did not involve contrived or sophisticated targeting, took place within a narrow timeframe and that both parties had been upfront about who they were. He said his client had been the adult, but was relatively young at the time, had developed insight into the offences and had written an apology to the victim.

Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy said the repeated conduct amounted to grooming. Although the girl did not physically resist, he said, she had been induced to submit and this was not true consent. He considered character references and accepted that the man was unlikely to reoffend and could be rehabilitated, but said he could not give full credit for the late guilty plea.