A self-claimed “drugs lord” who coerced a teenage girl to have sex with him by telling her she owed him a drug debt of €12,000 has been jailed for nine years.
Craig O’Connell (26) convinced the then 16-year-old he was a member of a criminal gang, then later claimed he’d been caught with €12,000 of drugs, accusing her of informing on him. He told the girl that unless she could repay the money or have sex with him, other men would go to her home to hurt her and “butcher” her family.
The girl agreed to have sex with O’Connell, believing she had no other option. He recorded her performing a sexual act, telling her he needed to provide proof to the gang.
Afterwards, O’Connell told her she still owed him €2,000, and she sent him jewellery and other items in an attempt to reduce this debt.
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He received a total of €11,555 from the girl, including her mother’s wedding band and a €6,500 engagement ring – which was later recovered – a tablet device, cash and €457 from three bank cards.
Gardaí do not believe O’Connell’s claims that he was a member of a criminal gang and was caught with €12,000 of drugs.
O’Connell of Hollyville, Hollyhill, Co Cork, pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to raping the girl on January 5th, 2024, at a hotel.
He also threatened the girl’s former boyfriend, accused him of being a ‘rat’, and falsely told the boy he owed a debt of €45,000. The boy (then 18) sold drugs for O’Connell in Limerick, Galway and Cork to try to repay him.
O’Connell pleaded guilty to making demands with menace to the then 18-year-old on October 27th, 2023.
His 62 previous convictions included 14 for deception, four for burglary and three drug offences. O’Connell was also on bail at the time.
Evidence was heard that O’Connell convinced both teenagers he was a member of a well-known organised crime group.
At a sentence hearing on Thursday, Judge David Keane imposed a sentence of 11 years for the rape offence and a concurrent six-year term for the offence of making a demand with menace.
The judge said the defendant had offered the pleas “on full facts” and was asking the court to “take into consideration” other charges of theft, oral rape, production of “child pornography” and coercion of a child to engage with the production of “child pornography”.
He said this meant O’Connell was admitting he had carried out these acts.
The judge said one of the aggravating factors was the abuse of trust. He said O’Connell created a relationship of trust by befriending the two victims, which he then abused through a series of elaborate and brazen lies.
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He convinced the girl that she was under his protection, and that he was trying to assist her rather than ruthlessly exploit her.
“He was presenting himself as her protector [rather] than the calculating predator that he actually was,” he said.
Keane said O’Connell’s actions were all deliberately planned to terrify and coerce the victims. He said by recording the oral rape, O’Connell created an added degree of degradation to the girl.
He noted the position of the Director of Public Prosecutions, who placed the rape at the “most serious” level of rape offending, but that Brendan Grehan, defending, argued it did not reach that threshold due to the lack of additional gratuitous violence.
The judge set a headline sentence of 14 years, which he reduced to 11 years, “almost entirely on the basis of the pleas of guilty”. He suspended the final two years on several conditions, including that O’Connell keep the peace and be of good behaviour, accept the supervision of the Probation Service and engage in offence- and victim-focused work with the service.
He also set a condition that O’Connell attend for assessment for sex offender treatment and complete any treatment he is deemed a suitable candidate for. He also ordered O’Connell to remain under post-release supervision for two years.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, the girl said she had changed as a person since she was “raped, abused and threatened”. She said she no longer feels safe in public and experiences panic attacks, even when she feels her best, “as if the trauma wants to remind me I am a rape victim”.
She said she would carry this as a weight on her shoulders for the rest of her life, but would “carry it proudly as I survived”. The girl thanked her family and friends for their support.
In his victim impact statement, the boy said O’Connell introduced him to cocaine, and he was now trying to get sober after developing an addiction.
The boy said he was isolated, suffered with sleep and trust issues, and had been unable to return to work.
The investigating garda agreed with Grehan that his client deceived the injured parties into believing he was a “drug lord of some kind”, that there was drug use, and that O’Connell had addiction issues.
It was further accepted that the girl told gardaí O’Connell asked her if they were going to do it again afterwards, she refused, they hugged, and she left. Letters of apology from O’Connell to both victims were read to the court.
Grehan noted his client had no similar previous convictions and had a serious addiction at the time.
The court was told that O’Connell had been sober for 14 months, but no documents relating to this were available for the court.
