A PAEDOPHILE tried to escape from a court house after being jailed for his part in sickening sex abuse attacks on a 13-year-old boy.
The man was one of two 21-year-old men jailed at Donegal Circuit Court for offences committed between late 2008 and the summer of 2009.
Patricia McLaughlin, prosecuting for the State, told Judge John O’Hagan that the pair, who were 17 at the time, lured their victim to a ‘children’s den’ built in a forest near a housing estate.
There they committed acts of sexual assault and defilement.
The victim was given cigarettes and the abuse took place as part of games of ‘Truth or Dare’.
The area of Co Donegal where the incidents took place cannot be identified to protect the victim. Those behind the attacks cannot be identified either, once again to protect the identity of their victim.
Defence lawyers for both men said their clients were highly sexualised from a young age, had been abused themselves by relatives and had low IQs.
One of the men was a heavy drinker, consuming 20 cans of beer per day as well as spirits.
He had shown no remorse for his actions; whilst the other man had done so.
Both however had failed to show up for appointments at a treatment centre which deals with perpetrators of child sex abuse whilst the courts were dealing with the matters, said Judge John O’Hagan.
The judge said the two men, although 17 at the time, “knew what they were doing was wrong.”
He said probation reports showed that “whichever way you look at it there is a risk of re-offending.”
The victim had suffered terribly as a result of the attacks.
The judge said it was his duty to tell the court that the two men had been offered treatment by Cosc, a HSE Service in Donegal Town which deals with paedophiles.
He read a letter sent to the court from Cosc which stated that one of the two men had been offered an appointment in May 2011 and he had not attended.
The Cosc staff member also said that two members of staff had now left the service leaving just her, a part-time employee to deal with the whole of Donegal, Sligo and Leitrim.
Responding to defence legal arguments that the men needed to receive treatment to prevent future abuse, Judge O’Hagan said there was nowhere to send them to, and the men had already failed to attend Cosc.
The Cosc staff member had said in her letter that there was already “a waiting list of some months.”
The judge sentenced each of the men to two years in prison on each of four charges, with the last year suspended. All terms are to run concurrently.
Both men must follow the direction of the probation service for two years on release and have their names on the sex offenders register for ten years.
One of the men tried to make a run for the door of the court but was restrained by prison staff.
The other man and his mother sobbed as he was led away.