Rapist who got 12-year-old girl pregnant facing jail sentence

Releasing Conaire Adams-Whyte on continuing bail, Judge Patricia Smyth told him: “I want to make it clear that I see no option but to impose a custodial sentence in this case.’’

Sentencing was adjourned until January.

Adams-Whyte, 20, from Crocus Street off the Springfield Road, pleaded guilty at Belfast Crown Court to a single charge of raping the schoolgirl in the bedroom of his home on a date unknown between June 30, 2015 and August 1, 2015.

Prosecution counsel Jackie Orr QC told the court that on September 29, 2015, police received a report that a 12-year-old girl was pregnant.

The police later met with the schoolgirl at her home and she told officers that Adams-Whyte was the father.

The court heard the young girl showed police a number of messages she had received from him on social network site Facebook.

Judge Smyth was told Adams-Whyte was arrested on October 1, 2015 and police took a DNA sample from him.

Ms Orr QC said: “He completely denied having sexual intercourse with the complainant and was released on bail.”

In April 2016, the baby boy was born and a DNA sample was taken from the child which was a match to the defendant.

Adams-Whyte said he had been out celebrating his 19th birthday earlier on the evening of the rape, he had been drinking but was not drunk, had taken Diazepam tablets and had little recollection of the night, adding that he “didn’t find her attractive”.

The court was told that a victim impact report said that the 12-year-old child was not suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.

It added that she was receiving support from a “loving mother” and her family along with social services as she copes with bringing up a child now as a 14-year-old.

Defence counsel Gavan Duffy QC told the court the offence had not been “pre-planned and there was pre-meditation ... there was no targeting involved and he is not attracted to pre-pubescents’’.