Christian Brother found not guilty of sexual abuse
Added on January 27, 2005
Anne Lucey
27/01/2005
A jury yesterday cleared a Christian Brother formerly attached to St Joseph's CBS Industrial School in Tralee of eight counts of sexual complaints by a former inmate.
The jury of six women and six men unanimously returned a verdict of not guilty on the second day of the trial at the Circuit Criminal Court in Tralee.
The now 50-year-old man who lives in London said he would wet the bed at night rather than use the toilet when the Brother was on dormitory duty. He alleged that the indecent assaults and gross indecency had taken place in a storeroom off the kitchen on four separate occasions, although he did not have specific dates. He had been sent as a 12-year-old to St Joseph's by District Court Order, because he had 'skipped' school.
The man cannot read and suffers from depression. The Brother denied four charges of indecent assault and four charges of gross indecency on four occasions between April, 1967 and June 30th, 1970. He was transferred to the school in 1964, about three years before the boy. He did not remember the boy.
Mr Patrick Gageby SC, defending, said his client faced "the ultimate nightmare" in that someone would come up 35 years later and say "you did something wrong". Mr Gageby said the complainant may have mistaken his client's identity.
In charging the jury, Judge Kevin Haugh warned of "particular dangers" in a case of this nature. The difficulties were greater in this case for a variety of reasons, he said. The law recognised there were particular dangers in conviction in a case that depended on the evidence of a young person. Such evidence had to be treated with extra caution and care.
"In sexual complaints, be they from young or old, boys or girls, men or women, the law also says be extra vigilant," the judge continued. "For reasons unknown, sexual revelations were sometimes made in circumstances that turned out to be untrue, whereas this tended not to happen in cases such as robberies."
Judge Haugh also warned of "stale cases", when there was a long time-span between the allegation and the trial. But it was up to the jury to decide the guilt or innocence of the accused. His were legal warnings; the weighing of facts was the duty of the jury, Judge Haugh said.
? The Irish Times