Sex offender blames voodoo for attack on teenager

[Menydh]

Sex offender blames voodoo for attack on teenager

The Irish Independent
December 6, 2007

A MAN who committed two sex assaults on schoolgirls in uniform in a year blamed voodoo for his offences each time, a court heard yesterday.

African refugee Joshua Daini (22) with an address at Cliffe View Hostel, Donegal Town, pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 14-year-old in a laneway after stalking her near her home in Donegal town on September 21 last.

He was jailed for a year for his offence yesterday at Donegal Town District Court, which heard it was his second similar offence.

Lifting reporting restrictions on naming the defendant, Judge Desmond Zaidan said Daini had already been placed on the sex offenders register at the time of the second offence.

Judge Zaidan said: "His reason offered [was] that voodoo contributed to his behaviour. Now it is clear from his previous record that within months of being released he commits this and offers the excuse of voodoo".

The court was told he had a similar conviction from April 3, 2007, for an offence committed on November 28, 2006, when in Co Wicklow he was sentenced to three months imprisonment for following two uniformed schoolgirls before lifting up the skirt of one his victims, twice, before putting his hand down her underwear.

Judge Zaidan said: "This is a similar type of offence, which involved the stalking of schoolgirls in uniform and then molesting them by putting his hand up their skirt".

He added that he believed the defendant had the attack "well planned and executed", but added he appeared to have "little insight into his behaviour".

The victim was not in court but submitted a written victim impact statement to the judge. Judge Zaidan said despite the early plea and the reasons offered by the defendant, he would exercise his discretion and jail him for the maximum term of one year.

He ordered him to be placed on the sex offenders register, be subject to sex offenders treatment before his release and subject to two years supervision.