A 30-YEAR-OLD Dublin man with a violent history has been jailed for three years for viciously physically assaulting a young teenage girl while she was babysitting.
The girl, who is 16 now, said in her victim impact statement that she still suffered back pain, had undergone physiotherapy and had to sleep in a room with her younger brother since the attack. She described feeling “lonely” during the assault because there was no one around as it happened.
She said in the statement, read out in court by Damien Colgan, prosecuting, that she was suspended from school a number of times after the attack because she had taken her anger out on teachers. The man pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to assaulting the then 14-year-old girl on September 15th, 2007.
Garda Tara Byrne told Mr Colgan that the assailant and another man had been in the house the same night that the girl was babysitting child relatives.
Garda Byrne said the assailant approached his victim in the children’s bedroom, asked her what “the story” was between them.
Garda Byrne said the man picked her up, dragged her out of the room. They fell down the stairs and the assailant covered the girl’s mouth when she tried to scream.
Garda Byrne said the man threw the girl on a couch, “boxed” her in the ribs and told her if she screamed he would stab her with a syringe. Garda Byrne said the man who had been asleep arrived and the attacker backed away.
Judge Patricia Ryan noted that the offence was “extremely frightening” for the teenager, but backdated the sentence to when the man entered custody in July 2008.