Teenager sentenced for under-age sex with two girls

Saturday 28 January 2017

A 17-year-old boy who’d drunk an "obscene amount of alcohol" and then had under-age sex with two 15-year-old girls, who had also been drinking, has been sentenced to 120 hours community service and put on probation for 18 months.

Outlining the case for the prosecution, the Attorney General, Robert MacRae, explained to the court the offences happened at a party which friends had organised at the accused’s home to help him forget his problems.

The court heard that his father had died a matter of weeks before, and he was also worried because he didn’t have a job, and had no way of looking after his younger sister.  He’d lost contact with his mother.

There were about 30 youngsters at the party. Police were called very early on after neighbours complained about the noise, and drunken teenagers smashing glass. Most of the partygoers left after the police came round but a handful stayed behind.

One of them was 'Sarah' (not her real name) –  the accused's girlfriend. They’d been seeing each other for a week, and the court was told she willingly went upstairs to the bedroom to have sex with him.

After ‘Sarah’ left, he started chatting to another girl 'Jane' (not her real name). She also agreed to go upstairs with the accused, although the court heard she was so drunk she thought she was going with a different boy she’d met that night, who had the same name. 

Defending, Advocate Mark Bootham told the court the offences should be viewed as being at the lower end of the scale and there was a great deal of mitigation: sex with the first girl had been consensual, they were in a relationship, and there was only a two year age gap; sex with the second girl should be viewed as “a drunken one-night stand between two drunken teenagers."

Sentencing, Deputy Bailiff, Tim Le Cocq, said the court viewed all cases of under-age sex as being extremely serious. Nevertheless, he accepted much that had been said in mitigation in the case of sex with ‘Sarah’.

The incident with ‘Jane’ though, was “far more serious,” he said. The accused wasn’t in a relationship with her, and sex had been “opportunistic”. He’d also continually lied about what had happened, and had shown no remorse.