On Friday afternoon, as the country was heading into a bank holiday and the media obsessed with storm warnings, the DPP dropped charges against a man who had been accused of sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl near the Citywest Hotel asylum complex in October 2025.
The 10-year-old girl was in the care of Tusla at the time. These were deeply disturbing and upsetting allegations.
At a court hearing last December, it was revealed that the man, who is a 27-year-old Sudanese asylum seeker, previously told gardaí after being cautioned that the child “told me she was 18” and “I just kissed her”.
The suspect had entered the country as an asylum seeker in 2019, and his application for international protection had been refused in 2024. He was subject to a deportation order since May 2025, five months before the alleged assault took place.
News that he was suspected of subjecting a 10-year-old child to serious sexual assault lead to widespread public anger and protest – and to public disorder around the Citywest asylum complex, with 37 people arrested after rioting that saw Gardaí being attacked with bottles and fireworks.
The news that the State had now decided to drop both of the sexual assault charges was met with shock and disbelief online on Friday.
Senior Counsel for the State told Justice Martin Nolan at the Central Criminal Court, where the accused appeared by video link, that a nolle prosequi was being entered by the Director of Public Prosecutions following a review of the investigative file.
A nolle prosequi is not an finding of innocence or an acquittal. But it means the prosecutor has decided not to continue with the case. The suspect was told by the judge that he was free to go – but was then immediately re-arrested when he left Midlands Prison by the Garda National Immigration Bureau on foot of a deportation order.
He has not been named – and the DPP has not given any reason as to why the charges were dropped. The situation is so bizarre and unsettling that the Irish Independent ran with a headline accusing the DPP of “refusing” to explain the decision – and said that there is “deep unhappiness” within An Garda Síochána because of the nolle prosequi.
The DPP’s silence is inexplicable, and is driving endless speculation around why this has been allowed to happen. Perhaps there is a valid and reasonable reason not to proceed – but refusing to clarify that is unacceptable given the huge public interest and upset at what was alleged to have taken place at Citywest.
The office of the DPP often refuses to comment on individual cases, but Independent Ireland’s Ken O’Flynn expressed the disbelief of many observers who find it intolerable that the State believes it has the right to withhold a satisfactory explanation.
“A 10 year old girl in State care. Charges dropped. No reason given,” the Cork TD wrote. “I respect the independence of the DPP. But independence cannot mean silence.”
He pointed out that Tusla could be asking questions on behalf of the 10-year-old child.
“The law gives victims the right to ask why a case was dropped and to seek a review. This child is in the care of the State. Tusla should be asking those questions for her, and it has only weeks to do it. And there is a simple question for the Department of Justice. A deportation order was reported to have been in place since May 2025. Why was it not enforced? People are entitled to answers,” he said.
The sad reality is that public confidence in Tusla is already on the floor. And there is also a great deal of public disquiet at the State’s refusal to take an honest and transparent approach to migrant crime. The deliberate decision not to report crime by ethnicity or nationality seems increasingly like an attempt to obscure – even to deceive.
And media are now being told that the International Protection Act forbids asylum seekers charged with crimes from being named – even when a woman has been brutally murdered. In addition, foreign nationals, even when the case involves a sexual assault on a vulnerable women, are being handed reduced sentences “to take into account the difficulties” for them serving time in this jurisdiction.
On Friday, RTÉ reported that: “In October 2025, false allegations, misinformation and disinformation was widely circulated online that subsequently fuelled three days of rioting at Citywest in Dublin.”
What exactly is meant by that statement? Public anger was not lit by false allegations but by news of an alleged sexual assault which led to a man being arrested and charged and remanded in custody until last Friday. Now the DPP has dropped those charges which may well to misinformation – but the State, and the State alone, has the ability to bring the clarity needed to the public’s concerns.
There is a growing sense that victims, and the safety of Irish people, is not always being put first. The DPP must explain why these serious charges involving a 10-year-old child were dropped. The public cannot be left in the dark.