There is no place in secure State care for a teenage girl who gardaí believe is being subjected to “horrifying” sexual exploitation by multiple men, the High Court has heard.
The girl, who is 14 and has a mild learning disability, is in the care of Tusla and believes these men “care for her”, Judge John Jordan was told yesterday.
She had been approached by men who brought her to a house in another county and gave her alcohol, cocaine and other drugs to “relax her”.
Tusla was seeking a special-care order for the girl, but told the court it was currently unable to provide her with a bed in any of its three special-care units.
Special care is the most secure form of care for children aged 11 to 17 whose behaviour is so disturbed as to put them or others at extreme risk. A High Court order is required to detain a child in special care. However, just 15 of the 26 beds are open due to staffing shortages.
The judge described the abuse as “abhorrent” and said the girl should be provided with a bed in the system “immediately”.
He lifted the in-camera rule, which operates to protect the identity and privacy in such cases, in this case and also in a second involving extreme sexual exploitation of a teenager.
Jordan directed that details of the cases be sent to three Government Ministers – Minister for Children Norma Foley, Minister for Justice Jim O’Callaghan and Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers – as a “vivid illustration” of the “consequences” of the State’s ongoing failure to open all special-care beds.
“It is important they be aware of the appalling predicament of this child and of the absolute urgency in opening up all the three special-care units,” he said.
Sarah McKechnie, barrister for Tusla, told the judge that the 14-year-old’s family had been, since her birth, known to social workers for antisocial behaviour, drug-taking and verbally abusing their children. The girl had witnessed one of her parents die, the court heard.
McKechnie said the adolescent had been “seeking out males to offer them sexual gratification as a way of feeling wanted and loved”. She was “having sex with numerous males” and complaining of pain in her vaginal area, the barrister said, but “sadly she reports liking this attention”.
Gardaí were “heavily involved” in the “disturbing case”, McKechnie added.
Making the special-care order, the judge said compliance was “not optional”.
The court also heard that a second teenage girl in Tusla care was being “sexually exploited by a large number of men”.
Paul Gunning, barrister for Tusla, said the girl had been seen on social media “clearly under the influence of drugs and distressed”.
She had complained of pain in her pelvic area as a result of what she described as “very rough sex” with these men.
Making an order to detain her in special care, the judge said the girl was “clearly the victim of abhorrent sexual exploitation by adult males”.
He ordered papers in her case also be sent to the Ministers “so that those in authority with the power to open up the beds ... will have a vivid illustration of the consequences of not doing so”.
The court also heard that a 16-year-old boy was taking and selling drugs, and holding large quantities of heroin and crack cocaine for older men. Making an order that he be detained in special care, the judge said the child had “become enmeshed in criminality and drugs”.
The boy saw these older criminals as “his support system”, the court heard, and was “unsafe” in the community.
He had been found by gardaí with a consignment of drugs worth several thousand euro.
“There are concerns now for his safety for reason of his loss of that consignment,” the court heard.