A 14-year-old girl was waiting at a north Dublin bus stop when Anatol Botnari put an arm around her waist and touched her over her clothing. He said he had stumbled after drinking. The girl gave evidence. CCTV showed his approach. The judge rejected his story and convicted him of sexual assault.
The bus stop
The offence happened between 9pm and 9.20pm on 4 February 2022. Garda Conor Garland told Dublin District Court that Botnari put his arm around the girl's waist and touched her on the vagina over her clothing.
The child was not a silent figure in somebody else's account. She gave evidence herself. Judge Monika Leech found her reliable and noted that what she told the court was consistent with what she had said afterwards to friends, a family member and Garda Garland.
The defence failed against the evidence
Botnari denied the charge. His account was that he had consumed a large amount of alcohol, tripped and put his arms around the girl to stop himself falling.
The judge did not accept it. CCTV showed Botnari approaching the girl directly. Judge Leech found that he intended to commit the sexual assault and said the child's fear was palpable while she gave evidence.
On 15 March 2024, after a non-jury trial, the court returned a guilty verdict.
The assault on Botnari was a separate wrong
People in the area confronted Botnari after the offence. He suffered head injuries and was taken to hospital. His solicitor described those involved as vigilantes at the first court appearance. Garda evidence did not confirm that label, but did confirm that Botnari required medical treatment.
The later sentencing report says Judge Leech took into account that people in the community had already administered what she described as their own form of punishment. That event belongs in the record because it affected the sentence. It does not erase the child's evidence or turn an unlawful beating into justice.
Six months, all of it suspended
On 3 September 2024, Judge Leech imposed a six-month prison sentence and suspended the full term for two years. The court noted that Botnari had no previous convictions.
The suspension came with conditions. Botnari was not to reoffend, had to cooperate with Probation Service supervision and engage with any victim-awareness programme considered relevant. He was ordered to stay out of the district where the offence happened and was barred from unsupervised contact with children. The report also states that he would be on the Sex Offenders Register.
For most of the five and a half months between verdict and sentence, the defence said Botnari had not accepted the ruling, which affected his engagement with the Probation Service. By sentence, his solicitor said he accepted the conviction.
Moldovan origin, Romanian passport
RTÉ described Botnari as originally from Moldova. The earlier court reports described him as a traffic-maintenance worker from Moldova.
At his February 2023 first appearance, however, the court heard that he used a Romanian passport. Gardaí were then waiting for information from Interpol and raised concerns about his identity and the two addresses he had supplied. The judge granted cash bail with conditions that included surrendering his passport, signing daily at a Garda station and staying away from parts of north Dublin and witnesses.
Those were concerns raised at a bail hearing, not a conviction for a passport or identity offence. The reports reviewed for this file do not establish whether Botnari was a Moldovan or Romanian citizen and do not say that the passport was false. This record therefore states his reported origin and goes no further.
A stated wish to leave is not an immigration outcome
At sentencing, the defence said Botnari wished to return to Moldova for help with his mental health. His father had travelled to assist him after Botnari was hospitalised for depression and lost his job.
No reliable public record located in this review confirms that he returned to Moldova, was removed from Ireland or was subject to a deportation process. A defence statement about what a person wants to do is not evidence that it happened.
No later appeal or offence was located
Exact-name searches for an appeal, later Irish conviction, Garda record, deportation, removal and post-2024 outcome returned the same first-appearance, conviction and sentencing reports. No reliable later event was located.
That means the public record reviewed here supports one concluded sexual-assault conviction and no previous convictions at the time of sentence. It does not prove that nothing happened outside indexed public reporting.
Timeline
- 4 February 2022: Botnari sexually assaulted the 14-year-old girl at a north Dublin bus stop.
- 6 February 2023: Dublin District Court granted conditional bail after Gardaí raised address, identity and flight-risk concerns.
- 15 March 2024: Judge Monika Leech convicted Botnari after a non-jury trial.
- 3 September 2024: The court imposed six months' imprisonment, fully suspended for two years, with Probation Service and child-contact conditions.
State cost: real, but not quantified
This case required a Garda investigation, a DPP file, legal aid, multiple District Court hearings, a trial, a probation report, post-sentence supervision and Sex Offenders Register administration. The child and her family also bore costs that no government ledger can capture.
No person-specific accounts for those services were found. The prison-space benchmark used elsewhere in this archive does not apply because the six-month term was fully suspended. Assigning a taxpayer figure here would create false precision, so this case remains unbenchmarked.
Sources
- RTÉ, 3 September 2024: reported origin, conviction evidence, sentencing, conditions, previous-conviction status, register position and defence mitigation.
- BreakingNews.ie, 15 March 2024: trial evidence, CCTV findings, guilty verdict, bail status and adjournment for sentence.
- The Irish Times, 7 February 2023: first appearance, Romanian-passport evidence, Garda objections, address and identity concerns, legal aid and bail conditions.