Man found not guilty of raping his 17-year-old stepchild
A jury found a man not guilty of raping his 17-year-old step-daughter who has transitioned in the ten years since and now identifies as a man. Picture: iStock
A jury found a man not guilty of raping his 17-year-old step-child 10 years ago.
The complainant undertook gender transition since the alleged incident and now identifies as male.
“It happened to her when he was a she,” prosecution senior counsel Tim O’Leary said in his closing speech at the Central Criminal Court sitting in Cork.
Defence senior counsel Vincent Heneghan said that the allegations of rape and sexual assault were fabrications.
The jury of six men and six women deliberated for two hours and 26 minutes before returning unanimous not guilty verdicts in the case.
Ms Justice Eileen Creedon thanked the jury and excused them from jury service for the next five years.
The complainant was not present when the not guilty verdicts were handed down. The middle-aged defendant appeared to be emotional as the case against him ended.
At a previous trial last year he was similarly found not guilty on multiple sexual assault counts in respect of the same complainant. This retrial ending today related to one rape charge and one sexual assault count, on which last year’s jury could not agree on verdicts.
Outlining the prosecution allegations, Mr O’Leary SC said:
“He compliments her on her looks and takes off the bottom of her pyjamas and takes his clothes off and rapes her. She says stop. He continues. She says it was not by consent.”
The complainant testified that the next day the defendant (their mother’s partner) put his finger in the complainant’s vagina on a car journey to school.
Mr O’Leary reminded the jury of evidence of a multiplicity of texts over a four-day period between the defendant and the complainant later in the year of the disputed rape and sexual assault in 2013.
Mr O’Leary referred to the accused denying the crimes and telling gardaí he did not get on well with the complainant and that they did not really talk to each other.
However, Mr O’Leary said that, in the texts, the defendant said he loves the teenager and asks “do you love me?” to which he received a reply: “Sure.” Mr O’Leary said the accused repeatedly texted during those four days of saved texts: “Are you deleting these texts?” The defendant texted that he will have to “spank” the teen and at another stage he texted “Let’s be naughty”, and asked for a full-body picture of the complainant. When he received it, he texted: “Now naked. Go on. Dare you. LOL.” Mr O’Leary said: “This is from someone who says it [rape and sexual assault allegation] is all fabrication.”
Regarding the texts sent over a four-day period approximately ten years ago, Mr Heneghan SC for the defence said: “There is no doubt about it, they are shameful, they are wrong, they are sinister. A man of 54 should not be sending texts to a 17-year-old girl.
Mr Heneghan, SC, said that in the large amount of documentation relating to the case the first time that there was mention of the sexual assault occurring when the car was stopped was made in the evidence of the complainant this week.
Mr Heneghan said: “We never heard that before. That must cause you some doubt about the credibility of the witness.”
He submitted to the jury: “We know he is able to fabricate stories. In 2008 he fabricated a story about his own mother in school. In an effort to secure friends, (the complainant) copied another student’s circumstances and said her mother had a drug and alcohol addiction and her mother had killed her (complainant’s) baby sister – a complete fabrication, an outrageous story to tell about your own mother.
Mr Heneghan said there were inconsistencies in different accounts given by the complainant over time in relation to the alleged rape and sexual assault.
There is a legal prohibition on identification of the parties to the case.
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