A 34 year old Ballyshannon man has been found guilty of having sexual intercourse with a 13 year old schoolgirl.
At the end of a six day trial at Donegal Circuit Court, Kenneth McDonald of 19 Ernedale Heights Ballyshannon, was convicted on six sexual assault charges relating to incidents at various South Donegal locations from June to November 2003.
After de
liberating for two hours and forty eight minutes, the defendant was found guilty to four charges on dates in June, and October to November 2003, but not guilty on the charges relating to two incidents at various locations on dates between July 1 and 31, 2003.
A serving soldier in the Irish Army, he was originally charged on six counts of sexually assaulting the girl at various locations in South Donegal on dates between June and November 2003.
The trial began last Thursday week where State Prosecutor Eileen O’Leary SC told the nine man, three woman jury that it was not alleged that the defendant forced himself upon the complainant.
“The matter of consent is not an issue in this trial, rather the law is designed to protect children from not only lustful men but also from themselves”, she said.
Ms O’Leary added the offences were alleged to have occurred on dates, at a time when the young girl ’ had gone off the rails’, was behaving badly, drinking,smoking cannabis, sexually active and ‘hanging around with other people’.The girl told the court, because she was sexually active, she had her first contraceptive injection in July 2003. She was placed in residential care until she was 18 and now at 19 years old is considerably more mature and came to realise what McDonald did was wrong.
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