Paedophilia accuser jailed for poster campaign
A 61-year-old man who put up posters in his locality naming a publican as an alleged paedophile has been jailed for 30 months by Judge Katherine Delahunt at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Bernard Clyne, Brighton Cottage, Foxrock, was convicted by a jury in May of harassment of his victim between April 2 and April 21, 2003 by putting up the posters.
Judge Delahunt noted that the offence carried a possible sentence of seven years or a fine and said she considered Clyne’s premeditated actions at the upper end of the scale but she took his age and health, among other matters, into consideration in the sentence she imposed.
The jury of five men and seven women found Clyne guilty of harassment after a four-day trial in which it heard him say that the English television series, The Bill, had given him the idea to run what he agreed was "a concerted campaign" against the publican.
Judge Delahunt said she had not taken Clyne’s two previous convictions into account because she considered them to be only of historical interest at this time. One was an order under Section 13 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984 and the other for indecent assault on a woman in 1966.
Judge Delahunt noted that during the trial a number of points of law had been canvassed in what was a historical case of a nature that hadn’t come before the court previously under the Non-Fatal Offences against the Prson Act
She said Clyne had embarked "on a premeditated campaign of harrassment" by putting up posters containing allegations of a scandalous and grievous nature which had the intention of causing distress to the victim and his family and also in his own admission to causing economic loss.
"This campaign took on a more sinister nature when it emerged he had been barred from this pub beforehand," Judge Delahunt said.
Judge Delahunt noted that Clyne had not expressed regret or remorse in his evidence and had told the jury he did not accept his campaign had caused any distress to the victim. The question of whether or not he might re-offend was also a cause of distress to the court.
Judge Delahunt refused an application by defence counsel, Mr Michael O’Higgins BL (with Mr Michael Cush SC) for leave to appeal both conviction and sentence in view of the nature of the case and legal issues it had raised.
Clyne had told the jury he ran the campaign as a favour to a lifelong friend who asked him to get justice for his son who had allegedly been sexually abused by the publican when he was about eight or nine years old.
"I believed every word in the posters", he told his counsel. He also explained that he had opted to put up the posters rather than report the matter to gardai for several reasons.
He said he was "not a learned man" and did not know the proper procedures at the time, and the boy had been "too fragile" then to handle questions from gardai. Nor had gardai, he said, asked him to elaborate when he "vaguely" mentioned his friend’s allegation during gardai interviews.
Clyne had denied, in cross-examination by prosecuting counsel, Mr Remy Farrell BL, that he had run the campaign because he had been barred from his victim’s pub for singing.
"Everyone was amazed when I sang funny songs and that. People gets excited when there is football on and they sing Ole’ Ole’ and things like that. I was not the only one," said Clyne, who the court heard, is a Manchester United fan.
The son of his friend who was allegedly abused by the publican told the jury he told his father about the alleged abuse near Christmas 2002 when the older man was dying of a terminal illness. He had tried to tell his father at the time but he had refused to believe him.
"He bashed me," the now 23-year-old man told the jury. He said relations between his father and him deteriorated from that time and they were only reconciled after he had the conversation with him in December 2002 and his father apologised for not believing him before.
Clyne had earlier told the jury that his friend told him when dying of a terminal illness that he had let his son down by failing to listen to him when he tried to tell him about the alleged abuse. He said he had "failed to see the signs" when his son was trying to tell him.
His son had been behaving badly at the time and eventually lost contact with the family. The accused said he was "horrified" with what his friend told him and believed him implicitly. "I knew from the time we were born and he never ever told me a lie," he said.
Clyne said his friend asked him "as a favour to ensure his son got justice" and he promised he would do that. His friend gave him all the details of the alleged abuse and he promised he would do his best "to ensure justice."
That was in November 2002 and with the help of his family he got the money together to go to England to get his friend’s son back. His friend died in March 2003.
Clyne began the poster campaign shortly thereafter. The publican told the jury that he is a grandfather and was extremely distressed by the campaign.
"I still get upset when I see the posters," he told the jury after unfurling and holding them up as exhibits in court.
