Sports coach jailed for rape and sexual assault of teenage girls
Olivia Kelleher
A 63-year-old sports coach who was convicted of the rape and sexual assault of two teenage girls who were 40 years younger than him has been jailed for 14 years.
A trial at the Central Criminal Court in Cork earlier this year heard that the man was warned by an investigating detective to stay away from one of the teenage complainants in the case.
His reply to the detective was: “What happens when she is 18?”
In her closing speech to the jury at a trial in April, prosecution senior counsel Anne Rowland said that it “took some gall” for the man to ask that question of the detective.
The evidence in the case was that the man, who is from Kerry, threatened to drop the two victims from his sports programme if they told anyone he had engaged in inappropriate sexual activity with them.
Det Garda Raleen Bell said that the man texted messages to one of his victims that included: “I hope you are not out to hang me. Keep your mouth shut and we will be fine.” Another text read : “I could kidnap you.”
Det Gda Darragh McGuire had given evidence in the case that the man began coaching one of his victims when she was just 12 years old.
He became abusive — both verbally and physically and slapped her if he felt she wasn’t excelling in her sport.
On one occasion, he brought her to a field in a rural location where he told her : “I could do anything to you out here, I could rape you, I could kill you”, the court heard.
Later, after asking her for kisses, he started trying to touch her and put his hand up her shirt.
The girl was in her mid-teens when he began to force her to perform sexual acts on him. The abuse included making her carry out the act when he was driving his car. On another occasion, he went into a church car park and ordered the girl to perform the sex act on him.
The girl was raped for the first time in the summer of 2021. She was in so much pain that she bit her arm. She begged for him to stop.
He raped the girl a number of times at overnight sports events around the country.
Two rooms would be booked at the accommodation, but the man would force the youngster to join him in his room. He would rape her.
Then when she eventually managed to sleep, she would wake up to find him beginning to rape her again.
The now ex-wife of the man contacted the mother of the victim to say that she believed that he was touching the girl and that there was inappropriate contact. A garda investigation was launched.
The court heard that the abuse of the second girl started off with the man touching the girl outside her clothes.
The mother of the second girl contacted the coach after she learned he had booked them both into one room for a sports event. When questioned by the mother, he told her “I was hardly going to rape her.” (The girl)
The man was convicted of three counts of rape, nine counts of oral and digital rape and 10 counts of sexual assault on one girl.
He was also convicted of nine counts of sexual assault on the other girl. All offences referred to a period in 2020 and 2021 when the victims in the case were aged from 15 to 17.
In a victim impact statement, which was read into evidence, the first victim said that the man had “hunted her.”
“You took away my innocence, something that can never be replaced; you broke the soul of a child.
"You normalised this behaviour – you used your position as my coach/mentor/teacher to manipulate and force me to things no teenager should ever have to do...You left me alone and afraid … You threatened me, making me fear you to ensure my silence on what was happening,” she said.
The second girl in her victim impact statement said the man had filled her with dreams and hopes of becoming ‘the next big thing’ in her sport of choice. She said that he used her love for the sport to manipulate and control her.
She said that she was deeply impacted by the “psychological and sexual abuse” she experienced at his hands.
“One of the hardest things I carry is the guilt I felt when I learned that there were others after me. I remember thinking over and over again that if I had spoken sooner, maybe they would have been spared the fear, the manipulation and the damage that you inflicted,” she said.
Judge Lankford noted that the man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, did not accept the verdict in the case and had shown no remorse for his actions.
She said that an aggravating factor in the case was the disparity in ages between the man and his victims. She also cited the man's attempt to alienate the girls from their parents as a further aggravating factor in the case.
She jailed the man for 10.5 years in relation to the first victim and for 3.5 years in relation to the second. Both sentences will run concurrently.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, you can call the national 24-hour Rape Crisis Helpline at 1800-77 8888, access text service and webchat options at drcc.ie/services/helpline/ or visit Rape Crisis Help. In the case of an emergency, always dial 999/112.
