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Jailed paedophile rapist charged with breaching court order from prison

It’s not the first time that McKenna, currently serving a nine year sentence for the abduction, sexual assault and rape of a 12-year-old child, has been charged with domestic abuse from prison.

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Dangerous paedophile rapist and woman beating thug Gerard McKenna today denied breaching a court order from prison.

Although the 29-year-old sex offender did not appear at Coleraine Magistrates Court, his defence counsel Thomas McKeever confirmed the rapist was denying the single charge against him alleging that breached the non molestation order on 19 December last year at HMP Magilligan.

He told District Judge Peter King no witnesses would need to be called as “the evidence can be agreed” and having heard that McKenna is serving a “significant sentence,” the judge said that “takes some of the pressure off” as regards fixing a date for the contest.

It’s not the first time that McKenna, currently serving a nine year sentence for the abduction, sexual assault and rape of a 12-year-old child, has been charged with domestic abuse from prison.

In September 2021, the drug addict father-of-three entered guilty pleas to charges of harassment, breaching a non-molestation order and persistent improper use of a telecommunication network on dates between December 1, 2020 and April 9, 2021.

Those charges arose after McKenna made a jailhouse threat to his ex-partner that he would “cut her into a thousand pieces” and made upwards of 100 calls to his ex every week from the prison where he was at the time on remand for child rape.

Amongst the threats he issued to his ex during upwards of 100 voicemails a week, remorseless paedophile McKenna told his ex he would put her in a car and bury her, that she was f****** dead and he would throw acid in her face.

During his two week rape trial in April 2022, the jury heard how McKenna and his mate 27-year-old Paul Sheridan “lured” two young girls away from responsible adults on 23 December 2019, giving them gulps of expensive Grey Goose vodka mixed with 7up before the pair raped the then 12-year-old victim on the Lagan towpath.

At the end of the trial and despite McKenna protestations of innocence, the jury unanimously convicted the thug of abducting, raping and sexually assaulting his 12-year-old victim, offering her cocaine and abducting her 15-year-old friend.

Sheridan, from Hillfoot Crescent in Ballynahinch, wasn’t tried with him as he had gone on the run under paramilitary death threat but when he was eventually arrested, he entered guilty pleas to rape, sexual assault and child abduction.

At Craigavon Crown Court last October, McKenna was handed a nine year sentence while Sheridan was given a six and a half year sentence with the paedophiles ordered to spend a further three years under supervised licence conditions when eventually released.

In court today, DJ King adjourned the case to October 2 to fix a date for the contest.