A young man described as a danger to a vulnerable 15-year-old girl was sentenced to two months in prison by a High Court judge yesterday for contempt of a court order directing him to stay away from the girl.
However, Ms Justice Laffoy put a stay on the coming into effect of the two-month sentence after the man undertook to stay away from the girl and from the home of one of his aunts, which the girl tended to visit.
The matter came before the court on the application of the Western Health Board, which has a supervision order relating to the girl, who lives with her mother.
In January last, Ms Justice Laffoy made an order requiring the man to stay away from the girl. The judge was told the board believed the man represented a danger to the girl and had the effect of disrupting care programmes for her.
The man had been imprisoned in the intervening months but was released in early June and since then, the court was told, there had been repeated breaches of the court order.
This led to the board making an application last week for the man's arrest with a view to having him brought before the court.
Yesterday, Mr Gerard Durcan SC, for the board, told the judge that gardaí had arrested the man and he was present in court.
In evidence, the man agreed he had been in the presence of the girl on a number of occasions. He said she had turned up, on some occasions, at his aunt's home when he also was there. On one occasion, she had turned up around 5 or 6 a.m. and it was raining and his aunt couldn't ask her to leave. Ms Justice Laffoy told him that he could have left.
Mr Durcan put to the man that, when he was arrested by gardaí, he had in his possession a photograph which featured him kissing the girl. The man said that photograph was taken some months back and was "a joke".
Ms Justice Laffoy told the man this was a very serious matter and he faced a term of imprisonment if he continued to breach the court order.
The man said he would stay away from the girl.