Aoife Nic Ardghail and Declan Brennan
A UK resident who repeatedly travelled to Dublin to have sex with a teenage girl who he claimed he was in love with has been jailed for four-and-a-half years.
The Central Criminal Court heard that then 25-year-old man and the 16-year-old became engaged at one point and he told gardaí he was in love with her. Mr Justice Paul Coffey said that it wasn’t love and said that the man was satisfying his sadistic urges by exploiting “a mere child”.
He met the girl online in mid-2016 and began travelling here to have sex with her. She was 15 when he first had sex with her and then continued to meet her for sex after she turned 16.
The pair met in hotel rooms and he recorded some of the sexual encounters on his phone. Mr Justice Coffey said the “clandestine nature” of the relationship between him and the victim indicated that he knew what he was doing was wrong. He said the defendant was controlling, possessive and manipulative.
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