July 2013
Teenager, 17, detained for raping 12-year-old girl
A teenager who admitted raping a 12-year-old girl at his father’s home in South Lanarkshire has been detained for 40 months.
Paul McNally, 17, admitted continuing to have sex with the girl, after she had told him to stop, at the house in Carnwath, on 4 February this year.
The girl’s father contacted police after he overheard her discuss the incident on the phone with her sister.
McNally’s name was also placed on the sex offenders register.
Sentencing him at the High Court in Edinburgh, judge Lord Pentland told McNally that, by law, the girl was too young to give her consent.
‘Significant risk’
“You were 16 and therefore much more mature than her and you were not in any form of relationship with her.”
Lord Pentland added: “She tried repeatedly to push you off but you carried on having sex with her.”
The judge said background reports showed McNally seemed to have little idea of the effect of what he had done on his victim and there was “a significant risk” he would offend again.
He also said the reports showed “a history of unruly and disruptive behaviour”.
Lord Pentland warned McNally that if he were in any more trouble during the four years after the end of his sentence he would be locked up again for breaching the conditions of his release.
An earlier hearing at the High Court in Glasgow was told that the 12-year-old girl and others had been at the home McNally shared with his father.
The schoolgirl, whom McNally knew to be under the age of consent, later agreed to have sex with him.
Victim ‘distant’
During intercourse, the girl told McNally to stop but he ignored her and continued to have sex with her.
The court heard that the girl eventually went home and her father noticed that she appeared “distant”.
The 12-year-old later called her sister and told her of her ordeal.
Her father overheard her saying “I can’t tell dad”, which led to police being called.
Officers detained McNally at his home and he told them he believed the girl was aged 14.
He claimed he knew it was “wrong” to have sex with an underage girl, but that he reckoned it was “OK if you did not get caught”.
