Retired teacher given month to draw up ?300,000 payment plan

Leo Hickey from Innishannon, Co Cork

By Barry Roche, Southern Correspondent

Sat, Sep 08, 2007

A 68-year-old retired primary school principal was yesterday given a month by a judge to present proposals on how he plans to pay over ?300,000 to a 42-year-old mother of two whom he sexually abused when he was her teacher.

Judge James McNulty said that he had to take into account the background of the case which gave rise to the judgment and it seemed to him that Leo Hickey had a good monthly income and significant assets and the issue of asset charging, disposal or transmit had to be visited.

However, he cautioned Hickey that while he was going to adjourn the case for a month to allow him explore other avenues, he believed a payment of ?200 a month was too little and he believed that a sum of ?400 a month to Ms O'Keeffe would be more appropriate.

Leo Hickey from Innishannon, Co Cork, was sentenced to three years in jail in June 1998 having pleaded guilty to 21 charges of indecent assault from a sample 380 counts relating to 21 girls. The offences took place between 1964 and 1973 while he was principal of Dunderrow National School near Kinsale.

Among the girls who was abused by Hickey was Louise O'Keeffe, who brought a High Court action for damages against the Department of Education and Hickey for the injury she suffered when he assaulted her on over 20 occasions when she eight years old. Ms O'Keeffe lost her action against the State when, in March 2006, Mr Justice Eamon De Valera ruled that the State was not liable for injury suffered by Ms O'Keeffe at the hands of Hickey and he awarded costs to the State.

She was left with a ?500,000 legal bill and has since appealed Mr Justice De Valera's ruling to the Supreme Court; she is awaiting a date for the hearing.

Meanwhile, in October 2006, Mr Justice De Valera found in her favour in her action against Hickey and awarded her damages totalling ?305,104.

However, Ms O'Keeffe has yet to receive payment from Hickey and yesterday took enforcement proceedings against him at the District Court in Clonakilty to compel him to pay her the damages. Hickey told yesterday's hearing that he was in receipt of a Government pension of ?26,000 per annum and that he had no assets other than his car and his three-bedroom bungalow in Innishannon which he estimated was worth ?400,000 and where he lives with his wife.

He said that due to his wife's ill health he could only afford to pay ?200 a month to Ms O'Keeffe without causing serious hardship to his wife and himself.

Cross-examined by Ms O'Keeffe's solicitor, Ernest Cantillon, Hickey - who revealed that he paid some ?650 a year in church donations - said he had discussed with his wife the possibility of obtaining equity release on their home as a means of coming up with money.

Hickey's solicitor, Plunkett Taaffe, said that it was important to remember that the case was an enforcement proceeding and not a means of visiting any further penalty on his client.

Speaking after the case, Ms O'Keeffe said she found it strange that the department can pursue her for costs while continuing to pay a pension to Mr Hickey whom they said they never employed.

"I just cannot understand how the Department of Education could say that this man whom they paid, disciplined and supervised when he abused me, is not an employee of theirs - if he is not an employee, what is his relationship with them?" she asked.

A department spokeswoman said that Ms O'Keeffe's appeal was sub judice and declined to comment further on it.

? 2007 The Irish Times