THE GIRL, now 19, and living in a different town, spent four years in care during which she initially ran away a number of times but eventually settled down in a secure institution in Dublin where she entered counselling.
While there she started school again and received sex education, a period she described as “life-changing” for her.
The court had heard the child first had sex with McDonald on June 20th when she had drink on her and he invited her to go for a spin. There was a baby seat in the back of his car.
She told him that night that she was aged 13. She knew he was in his late 20s at the time and that he had a partner, and a daughter aged seven and a boy aged two.
The jury heard how McDonald had a nickname for his baby son that implied he would develop sexual prowess when he grew up.
The evidence that clinched McDonald’s guilt for the jury centred on the girl’s secret diary and details of a stream of mobile phone call and text exchanges between him and the girl.
They also heard how when the girl was in his car he attempted to kiss her friend, a girl almost four years older, and how he “talked dirty” to three young teenage girls, including his victim, when they were all in the car together listening to a Dirty Dancing CD.
Throughout his questioning by gardaí McDonald, who did not give evidence, denied having the girl in his car, except when he gave her a lift in a taxi when he worked part-time for a taxicab company.
He also claimed he only knew the girl to see despite the pair being spotted together at one stage by officers at a Garda traffic checkpoint. He told gardaí he couldn’t explain how his mobile phone number was programmed into the girl’s phone.
Garda Liam Feeney became aware through confidential information in mid-November 2003 that the girl was having sex with at least two men.
When she knew she was about to be taken away, she wrote to her friend that she was surrounded by people she didn’t know and couldn’t wait for Christmas and “drink, drink, drink”. She also boasted in the letter of having had “f*****g good sex”.
By mid-December, she was taken into care on a court order.
