Two boys who raped a teenage girl in a car at Limerick Racecourse when they were aged just 13 and 15 have each been sentenced to six years in detention.
A third defendant, now aged 18, who was found guilty of aiding and abetting the rapes by moving the car in which it occurred was jailed for 3½ years.
The daytime attack against the girl involved humiliation and degradation, the Central Criminal Court heard.
The convicted rapists and their families do not accept the verdicts of the jury and there was a heavy Garda presence in court for Thursday’s sentencing.
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Mr Justice Paul McDermott said that if the boys – who are all cousins – had been adults at the time of the offending, the headline sentence for the rape offences would have been in the range of 15 years to life imprisonment.
“This was a 16-year-old intoxicated girl in a vulnerable situation subjected to rape and sexual assault,” he said. “She was raped one after the other by (the two boys) and in the course of these rapes, she was sexually assaulted.”
The girl repeatedly said “no” during the assaults, and further indignity and humiliation was heaped upon her by video footage being taken of the incident, the judge said.
Handing down sentence, Mr Justice McDermott noted there was very little to be said in mitigation for the boys, as they have not expressed remorse or any understanding of the harm caused to the complainant.
They must be sentenced as juveniles under the Children Act, in which detention is a last resort, the court heard.
The judge accepted the third defendant, who aided and abetted the rapes, has taken some responsibility for his involvement but struggles to understand it.
He noted they have no previous convictions and have been subject to some childhood trauma, with mental health difficulties in their families. They had a lack of understanding in the areas of sexual relations and consent, the court heard.
Mr Justice McDermott sentenced the two rapists to 7½ years of detention, with the final 18 months suspended on a number of conditions, including that they engage in sexual offending programmes and have no contact with the complainant. The judge noted that part of their sentence will be served in prison.
He sentenced the third defendant to five years in jail as he is now aged over 18. He suspended the final 18 months on the same conditions.
The three boys stood trial at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork earlier this year, with two of them (now aged 16 and 17) found guilty of sexually assaulting and raping the then 16-year-old girl in a car at the racecourse on December 26th, 2022. They were 13 and 15 at the time.
The third boy (now 18) was found guilty by the jury of four counts of aiding and abetting the rapes and sexual assaults following the six-week trial. The court heard he moved the car during the course of the attack. He was aged 15 at the time. He was acquitted of one count of false imprisonment.
The boys denied raping the girl, telling gardaí differing versions of events, with one claiming he was in Dublin on the day in question. They all eventually claimed it was a consensual encounter.
Det Garda Lisa O’Regan told Dean Kelly SC, prosecuting, that the girl was socialising with her friends at the racecourse on the day in question.
She was, in her own words, “really drunk” when she got chatting to the three boys, Mr Kelly said.
The court heard she agreed to go for a walk with one of the boys because she wanted to kiss him. Instead, she found herself in a car belonging to one of the boy’s fathers where she was sexually assaulted and raped by two of them.
When medically examined later that evening, she was found to have extensive bleeding and bruising. She was a virgin before the attack.
The complainant, now aged 18, was not in court for the sentence hearing.
In a victim statement read out on her behalf by counsel, she described her fear and anxiety in the aftermath of the attack, during which she was “begging them to get off me”.
“At the age of 16, I had my innocence stripped away from me,” she said. “These two (boys) took what they wanted with no regrets.”
She said her parents had to hear every “vulgar” and “gruesome” detail of what happened to her and that she will “forever have guilt on my shoulders – not just for how it affected me, but everyone around me”.
