A man found guilty of groping a 10-year-old girl while she was shopping in a Dublin Ikea store with her family has been given a six-month jail sentence.
Christian Mayer (48), with an address at Johannes Strasse in Nuremberg, Germany, was extradited last year but granted €15,000 bail pending his trial at Dublin District Court.
The IT professional was accused of sexual assault on a girl on a date in August 2019 and sexually assaulting another young girl five days later at Ikea on St Margaret’s Road, Dublin 11.
Mr Mayer, who previously lived at Shanowen Road, Santry, also faced a charge of engaging in offensive conduct of a sexual nature. He left Ireland after he was initially questioned about the allegations.
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The case relied on CCTV evidence collated by Ikea staff who had been made aware of the first allegation. This did not show the alleged incident involving the first girl (13) and that charge was dismissed. Mayer was captured on CCTV touching the 10-year-old girl’s breast area five days later.
Mayer told the court the incident was accidental and happened as he was trying to avoid a collision. However, after viewing further video evidence Judge John Hughes did not accept Mayer’s account and convicted him of sexually assaulting the girl and offensive conduct of a sexual nature.
The court heard Mayer, who was accompanied to court by his wife, had four convictions in Germany for driving without a licence, drugs possession and trespass offences.
Judge Hughes said the incident was a disturbance of the girl’s innocence and that her mother was “horrified” when she saw the video evidence.
He imposed a nine-month sentence but suspended three months on condition that Mayer pay compensation of €3,000, or the same sum to a charity if the family refused, and be supervised by the Probation Service for a year. The judge also fined him €1,000. Mayer again lodged his bail money to be released pending an appeal.
