Robert Fennell jailed for raping a teenage girl

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

Robert Fennell was sentenced at the Central Criminal Court on 15 April 2024 to 11 years’ imprisonment, with the final year suspended for two years. The proceedings were reported on 15 April 2024.

Fennell pleaded guilty to raping the 16-year-old girl at his home in Rathfarnham, Dublin, on 11 June 2018.

Mr Justice Paul McDermott set a 12-year headline sentence and reduced it to 11 years after taking mitigation into account. The suspension was on strict conditions, including assessment for offence-focused work, addiction treatment and drug monitoring. He also ordered that Fennell have no unsupervised access to children.

The court heard that Fennell gave the girl alcohol before she woke to find him raping her. She had contacted him after a person she believed was a 17-year-old boy suggested Fennell could help with her problems. Fennell denied being the person who had first contacted her online and insisted that person existed, but gardaí were unable to track him down.