Westmeath man sentenced for rape of teenage girl

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A Westmeath man was sentenced at the Central Criminal Court to 10 years for raping a 15-year-old girl, with the final year suspended for three years. He will be under probation supervision during that period. The proceedings were reported on 10 July 2023.

A jury convicted the man earlier in 2023 of a single count of rape at an address in a town in Co Westmeath on 20 January 2019. He was 29 at the time and the girl was 15-and-a-half. He does not accept the verdict.

Mr Justice Paul Burns said the man had opportunistically taken advantage of being left alone with the girl and knew her approximate age. He took account of her physical injuries and the verbal abuse used during the attack. In mitigation, he considered a forensic psychological report outlining anxiety, depression and drug and alcohol misuse, and said the man had a low range of intellectual functioning.

The man confirmed he had been in the apartment but denied sexual contact with the girl. John Paul Shortt SC, defending, submitted that the rape was impulsive rather than premeditated and occurred against a background of alcohol and drug consumption. He said the case warranted a six-to-eight-year headline sentence; Eileen O’Leary SC, prosecuting, said the Director of Public Prosecutions considered a headline sentence of 10 to 15 years appropriate.