A man has been jailed for nine years for rape, after coercing a teenage girl into having sex with him by convincing her that he was a drugs lord and that she owed him €12,000.
Craig O'Connell, aged 26, from Hollyville, Hollyhill in Cork, pleaded guilty to raping the then 16-year-old girl at a hotel in January 2024.
He also admitted demanding money with menaces from the girl’s former boyfriend who was 18 at the time.
Other sexual offences as well as theft offences and charges relating to videoing the rape were taken into account in the sentencing.
In her victim impact statement, the girl said she would never function the way she used to and what had happened would always haunt her in the back of her mind.
Her former boyfriend said every day was a struggle and he wished he had never met O'Connell.
Mr Justice David Keane said O'Connell had deliberately formed a friendship with the girl which he then exploited.
He said the rape was deliberately planned as part of a sustained deception intended to terrify and coerce, involving humiliation and cynical planning.
Outlining the facts of the case, the judge said O'Connell came to the city where the young people lived as a bail condition related to other criminal offences.
He befriended the 18-year-old man who was in a "teenage relationship" with the girl.
O'Connell undermined the relationship, causing them to break up and became more friendly with the girl.
He told her the man had incurred a drug debt and she used €500 from her part-time job to pay that off.
O'Connell told her he had high level connections to organised crime and the court heard she had seen him in a hotel with a large amount of cocaine and cash.
In September 2023, O'Connell falsely told the girl he had been caught with €12,000 of drugs by gardaí and that she must have informed on him.
He began to threaten her that people were on their way to harm her and her family.
He told her that if she did not want people to come to her home and "butcher her family" she could have sex with him to pay off the debt.
Mr Justice Keane said the girl had non-consensual sex with O'Connell in a hotel on 5 January 2024.
O'Connell recorded it saying he needed proof.
Afterwards he told her she still had €2,000 to pay.
She gave him her tablet and later posted him watches and jewellery belonging to her parents, including an engagement ring and wedding band valued at more than €10,000.
She sent him photographs of her bank card and of her parents' bank cards and he used these for online purchases.
The girl's father ordered new bank cards after noticing fraudulent transactions on his accounts.
O'Connell's actions were revealed after the father found his daughter with one of the new bank cards.
She broke down and told him what had happened.
The judge said messages recovered by gardaí showed the girl's vulnerability and included a screenshot of a snapchat message from O'Connell saying "you’re dead, rape, torture".
When he was arrested he initially told gardaí she had initiated sex with him.
O'Connell also accused the girl's boyfriend of being a "rat".
The court heard O'Connell sent the 18-year-old man a fake news story of three men being arrested while travelling to the city.
O'Connell said he owed a debt of €45,000 and that was now the man's debt.
The man said O'Connell tormented him and made him sell drugs for him, to pay off this money.
He said he was under constant threat and contemplated suicide.
The court heard none of the money stolen by O’Connell was recovered.
However, the engagement ring and wedding band belonging to the girl's parents had been found.
The girl said in her victim impact statement that she could no longer feel safe and secure in her skin while in public.
But she said she had survived being raped, tortured, threatened and taken advantage of in every single way.
However, she said she had had suicidal thoughts and would never function the way she used to.
At the sentencing hearing, the girl had asked if her statement could be read privately by the judge.
However, Judge Keane said it had to be opened in public.
He said the judiciary was "supposed to be kept in line by the antiseptic value of sunlight".
And he said members of the press were "entitled to have access to all material laid before the court".
The statement was read to the court by prosecuting barrister Mahon Corkery.
The 18-year-old man said he had issues with depression before meeting O'Connell.
He said he genuinely thought O'Connell was a high-level gangster and still thought he or someone connected with him was coming to harm him.
He said it affected him daily.
And he said he wished he had never met O'Connell.
Judge Keane said he wished both victims well and hoped they would continue to recover from the ordeals they each suffered at O'Connell's hands.
The judge said O'Connell had created a relationship of trust with the girl and abused it with elaborate and brazen lies.
He also pretended to be the girl’s protector rather than the calculating predator he really was.
He said the rape was not a single opportunistic offence but deliberately planned as part of a sustained campaign of deceit intended to terrify and thus coerce.
He said O'Connell had written letters of apology to the victims but these were difficult to reconcile with a probation report which mentioned his minimising of the offences and inability to engage with victim-led discussion.
The judge said there was no evidence before him that O'Connell had ever acknowledged the full extent of his offending behaviour.
He claimed to have addressed addictions to alcohol and drugs but the judge said there was no independent evidence before him to support this assertion.
He said all the evidence before him was that he was a "practised liar".
O'Connell has 62 previous convictions, including 14 for deception.
The judge sentenced O'Connell to 11 years for the rape with the final two years suspended on a number of conditions.
Charges of oral rape, production of child pornography, coercion of a child into the creation of child pornography as well as charges of demanding money with menaces and theft were taken into account.
O'Connell was sentenced to six years in jail to run concurrently for demanding money with menaces from the man.
Judge Keane said it was an "unusual case with a number of unusual features".
Additional reporting CCC Nuacht
