John Carroll had denied all five charges but was found guilty after a short trial this week in the Royal Court.
The offences all occurred at a cafe which he was running, where the woman said she worked when she was 13 or 14 years old, over the course of 2001 and 2002.
A video interview with the woman was played to the court in which she outlined what had happened and afterwards she was cross-examined in person by Advocate Alan Merrien, defending.
Additional prosecution witnesses included the woman’s mother and friends, all of whom recalled being told by the girl that she was working at the cafe.
However, Advocate Merrien said that this was all hearsay, since none of them had ever seen the girl at work.
One friend said she had visited the cafe with the girl while it was closed and she had acted with familiarity in the premises, walking into the kitchen, which indicated that she knew the layout and was free to move around.
The friend also said she had seen the girl and a man go into another room for about 10 minutes, after which the girl had made a sign that her friend took to mean that a sex act had taken place.
Although the girl’s mother said she never saw a payslip, she said that her daughter had spent her first pay packet on a bubble gum machine from a shop in town.
The woman told the court that she had been paid in cash directly from the till.
Carroll said no staff were ever paid in this way and there was no record of her ever working at the cafe. He said he could not remember her and claimed that none of the incidents she described had taken place. He could not say why the woman had made the claims.
His wife had kept meticulous records of who was working and salaries, he said, but these were destroyed after seven years.
And while the woman had said she and her friend were given alcopops when they went to the cafe, Carroll said he had only ever sold wine and beer, and even that was for only a short period.
The woman said she had gone to police to report the incidents in 2024 after attending an event near the cafe and someone had mentioned Carroll’s name and that he might be emigrating.
Advocate Merrien cast doubt on several aspects of the woman’s testimony, while Advocate Phoebe Cobb, prosecuting, argued that the woman had been very clear about what had happened to her and who was responsible.
The nine jurats took about an hour to reach unanimous verdicts on all five charges.
Carroll, who was also made subject to a sex offenders’ notification order, will be sentenced in May. He was granted open remand on condition that he surrender all photographic ID.