A north Dublin woman who sexually assaulted a five-year-old girl has had her sentence adjourned for four years by Judge Patrick McCartan, who was told she is now living in Co Louth.
Judge McCartan had told the 20-year-old woman on March 10th she was close to being jailed for disobeying the order by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court not to return to her home area.
She had been ordered by Judge McCartan last January to leave the area in which she and the victim live within three weeks, but in March he was told she had repeatedly returned to the locality.
He was told at the January hearing that she had also previously been ordered to move by former judge Mr Cyril Kelly when the case first came before the court in 1996.
Judge McCartan said his concern was to ensure the now 12-year-old victim was given a reasonable security that she would not meet the defendant in the foreseeable future.
The defendant pleaded guilty originally in 1996 to three charges of sexually assaulting the girl on dates unknown between January and December 1994.
Defence counsel Mr Patrick Gageby SC told Judge McCartan his client was recently married and was now living in Co Louth with her husband and two children.
Mr Gageby added that the offences she committed were more a case of immature curiosity by his client who was at a very young and vulnerable age. Garda Majella Frewen told the original hearing in 1996 that two of the three sexual assaults mainly involved "touching" and occurred in a house where the then school-going woman babysat. The victim would visit this house to play with the children there. The third incident took place in a field and the matter came to light when the victim told a schoolteacher during a "stay safe" programme.
Garda Frewen told last January's hearing the victim was under considerable stress and pressure due to the defendant having made gesticulations to her. She had complained to her mother that this was happening but the defendant denied it when questioned .
