Allegations that a failed asylum seeker sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl in Dublin last year, which sparked three nights of violence, have been withdrawn. But the formerly accused man was rearrested for deportation almost immediately after he was told by a court he was free to go.
In the wake of the charges being dropped, calls began circulating on social media for a protest outside the Citywest IPAS centre, Saggart, Dublin. Some of those promoting that protest are known far-right agitators.
The Irish Times understands gardaí are monitoring the activity online and reviewing the scale and nature of the security operation required for the planned event on Saturday evening.
Last year, in the days after the man was accused of sexually assaulting the child, a large protest at the Citywest IPAS centre turned violent. Lines of gardaí were attacked by rioters using bricks, bottles and fireworks for well over an hour before order was restored.
At one point horses were charged at Garda lines and some of those present, shouting racist and xenophobic slogans, broke down walls in a nearly housing estate so the bricks could be thrown at gardaí. There was sporadic violence in the area over the following two nights.
The Director of Public Prosecutions has not explained why the two charges of sexual assault against the now 27-year-old man, who is from an African nation, have been dropped.
However, The Irish Times understands the decision to discontinue the prosecution was made by the DPP in advance of the latest, and now final, court hearing in Dublin on Friday. It was a not a decision by gardaí and did not involve Judge Martin Nolan, who was presiding at Friday’s court hearing.
The accused man, who cannot be named under court rules relating to sexual crime cases, appeared before Dublin Circuit Criminal Court by video-link, from the Midlands Prison, Portlaoise, Co Laois, where he was in remand.
A senior counsel representing the State told Nolan that nolle prosequis were being entered in relation to both charges, meaning they were being withdrawn.
The judge said the man should be released from custody and the man then replied: “Thank you.” Sources said he was then prepared for release from the Midlands Prison.
However, immediately after he was freed, he was arrested by members of the Garda National Immigration Bureau on foot of a deportation order. The man is now expected to remain in custody until he is deported.
His deportation was ordered in the spring of last year, months before he was accused of the sexual attack, but the order was never executed and the man remained in the Republic.
After he was accused of the sexual assault, on October 20th last year near an IPAS centre, the man was immediately arrested and charged with one count of sexual assault. At a court hearing last December a second charge of sexual assault was introduced. When that second charge was put to the man by gardaí, the court heard he made a reply.
“I spoke to my solicitor and told him she sat beside me,” he told gardaí. “You can check the CCTV. She started talking to me and I asked her her age, she told me she was 18. I just kissed her.”
The case was a very controversial one for several reasons, aside from the now-dropped sexual assault allegations and rioting, as the child and family agency Tusla was forced to apologise for a statement it issued at the time.
It said the girl had been voluntarily placed into its care earlier in 2025 “due to significant behavioural issues”. It added she had “absconded” while on a recreational trip with staff in the city centre in the hours before the incident that later led to the sexual assault charges.
The Dáil was told at the time the Tusla statement “verged on victim blaming”. Tusla chief executive Kate Duggan later apologised for “the way it was released, and the impact of it, and the wording around it”.