Middle aged man found guilty of groping two 14-year-olds in Kilkenny

A middle-aged man has been convicted of two counts of sexual assault following an incident with two 14 year-old girls, in the centre of Kilkenny in the middle of the afternoon.

The man, who can not be identified for legal reasons, was convicted on both counts after a jury trial at Kilkenny Circuit Court.

Sergeant Dave Cosgrove told the court that he became aware of reports of a male harassing two 14 year-olds on May 27, 2022.

The girls were in the company of a boy the same age and had met to hang out after school. They were in the Peace Park area of the city.

They were sitting in the green area when a male approached them and started to talk to them.

The man, aged in his 50s, started making inappropriate sexual comments. This went on for some time and the youths were uncomfortable. He instigated the topics with a sexual context.

The boy asked how old the man was and he told them he was 52. The boy then asked the man if he thought it was ok to suggest he would have sex with a 14-year-old girl and the man said it wasn’t his fault and that he was ‘talking with his d*ck’.

The man fell off his bike, onto the two girls and as he was getting up he groped their legs and bottoms. One of the girls said the man fell onto them on purpose.

The youths then walked across the river to the other side of the city. They encountered the man again at Canal Square and then decided to contact the gardaí.

A garda was sent to the scene and Sgt Cosgrove said he saw the man on city CCTV.

When gardaí spoke to the man he appeared to be under the influence of an intoxicant. He matched the description given by the three youths.

One of the girls had taken a photo of the man on her phone at the first meeting and forwarded that to gardaí. It showed the same man.

He was arrested at his home and interviewed. He initially told gardaí the incident had never happened but later accepted he shouldn’t have spoken to the youths like that.

He said the nature of the conversation was that they were probably joking.

The man has now been remanded in custody since last May, the court heard, after it took two bench warrants for him to appear in court.

Judge Martin was told the man had 22 previous convictions including one under Section 45 of the Sexual Offences Act (exposure, offensive conduct of a sexual nature) and ‘a large number’ of public order matters dating back 24 years.

Sean Rafter BL, defending, said his client has a problem with alcohol and a lot of the previous convictions were in this context.
His client accepted the decision of the jury, the barrister added, and had asked Mr Rafter to apologise on his behalf to the victims.

Drink was a ‘major issue’ on that day. Mr Rafter said his client could not really remember what he said or what happened and put himself at the mercy of the court.

His client is a separated man with one daughter in the UK.

Judge Martin said that in considering the appropriate sentence he had listened to the barrister and sergeant, and that the sentence must be proportionate to the crime.

He said the teenagers had been groped by the man on an ordinary, pleasant afternoon in town, and they contacted the gardaí.

Sexual assault is a serious offence, the judge said and he in no way intended to belittle these offences by placing them at the lower end of what the court can encounter from time to time.

Aggravating factors in the case included the age of the two girls, who were on their way home from school, sitting in a grassy area with their friend. Also aggravating was the number of previous convictions the man had. Including one the judge described as for ‘grabbing his genital area and making lewd comments in public’.

OLD WAYS

This offence was also committed while the man was on a suspended sentence, the judge commenting the man was ‘back at your old ways again’.

Judge Martin noted that the man had given instructions to his defence to question the girls if they had been drinking on the day. 

That could only have been designed to cast doubt over their testimony to the jury, and belittle them.

The suggestion that the boy started the conversation had absolutely no basis, the judge said, other than to belittle him in the eyes of the jury.

The man said he had little memory of the event, however he had a clear memory of it during the garda interview, the judge pointed out, and he made no suggestions about the youths then, as his defence had in court.

Mitigation included the fact the man accepted the jury decision. He had been entitled to contest the case, the judge added. 

Also mitigating was the man’s apology, which the judge said he hoped would be of some solace to the girls. In accepting he shouldn’t have engaged with the girls showed the man had insight into the offence.

On both charges of sexual assault the man was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in prison, to run consecutively. The last six months is suspended, for 12 months, on condition the man remain alcohol free, keep the peace and be of good behaviour.

The sentence was backdated to begin when the man entered custody in May 2023.