A man who got a tattoo as a reminder of the day he violently raped a teenage girl has been jailed for 10 years.<\/p>\n
The 26-year-old pleaded guilty to raping the girl in a field in Co Meath on the second day of his Central Criminal Court trial last February.<\/p>\n
The girl was 14 at the time of the offending in September 2022, while the man was then 22. He cannot be named to protect the injured party\u2019s right to anonymity.<\/p>\n
They came into contact through social media and chatted for about one year before the rape occurred. The man also assaulted the girl, verbally abused and threatened her during the ordeal, which lasted between 90 minutes and three hours.<\/p>\n
They had arranged a safe word for when they met up, which the man ignored, the court heard.<\/p>\n
In early 2023, the man sent a photo of a tattoo he had gotten. In messages to an account set up by the girl\u2019s boyfriend, who was pretending to be her, the man said the tattoo was a reminder of \u201chow weak you are compared to me, I need to be reminded\u201d.<\/p>\n
He also said: \u201cYou are just another slut who had my dick in her mouth\u201d.<\/p>\n
In other messages, he used further insults and abusive language. \u201cI was your way out, you blew it. I needed a whore, you could have been more but you\u2019re not, which is sad.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have potential for love in you. You chose to be whore, a waste of beauty and intellect.”<\/p>\n
Imposing sentence on Monday, Mr Justice Sean Gillane noted the victim impact statement spoke of the lasting consequences for the girl, but also highlighted her resilience.<\/p>\n
He said the man had a \u201cvery high level of culpability\u201d and the aggravating factors included the \u201cdegrading\u201d physical and sexual violence, manipulation and grooming of the girl, the age disparity and the \u201ccallous and ruthless language\u201d used by the man in messages.<\/p>\n
He noted the man\u2019s guilty plea, though it was late, his expressions of remorse and that a probation report states the man is beginning to understand the impact of his actions.<\/p>\n
The judge said the probation report also states the man developed an interest in pornography at a young age and consuming violent pornography led to \u201cdistorted\u201d expectations around sex.<\/p>\n
The judge said 19 testimonials \u2014 all on affidavit and primarily from the man\u2019s family \u2014 were received by the court.<\/p>\n
Mr Justice Gillane said this was a topic of \u201crecent controversy\u201d and \u201cunderstandable concern\u201d. He noted the testimonials acknowledged an awareness of the man\u2019s offending behaviour and \u201cspoke well of him\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, the judge said in the context of identifying a headline sentence in a case like this, testimonials about the \u201cperceived previous good character\u201d carried \u201cvery little weight, if any.\u201d He said the testimonials were more useful in assessing the possibility of rehabilitation, noting the man had the support of his prosocial family.<\/p>\n
He also added the man\u2019s ability to appear trustworthy was a way that allowed the offending to take place.<\/p>\n
The judge imposed a 12-year sentence, with the final two years suspended for five years on strict conditions.<\/p>\n
In her victim impact statement, the girl said she believed the man was someone safe she could trust. She said she believed they had built a genuine connection, but that trust was not real and was created to manipulate her.<\/p>\n
She said what happened was more difficult to live with as it was not an accident, but \u201ca choice to manipulate a child, a choice to take advantage of someone who trusted you”.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is something you should carry. I have to live with the consequences every day.”<\/p>\n
She said the safe word was \u201cused against me\u201d and the tattoo was \u201cso humiliating\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said she felt her vulnerability was mocked. \u201cI hope when you look at it, you feel nothing but shame and disgust… for choosing to get a tattoo of the word that was meant to stop.”<\/p>\n
She said she worries she cannot be loved and she will carry what he did for the rest of her life.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut you should carry something too \u2014 the responsibility, the weight, the shame of what you chose to do to a 14-year-old girl who trusted you.”<\/p>\n
The girl said she was still standing and \u201cwill not let what you did define what I become\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who got a tattoo as a reminder of the day he violently raped a teenage girl…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[54,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-512933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-courts","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}